Crossword Dictionary

What's The Definition Of Design?

\De*sign"\ (?; 277), v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Designed}; p. pr. & vb. n. {Designing}.] [F. d['e]signer to designate, cf. F. dessiner to draw, dessin drawing, dessein a plan or scheme; all, ultimately, from L. designare to designate; de- + signare to mark, mark out, signum mark, sign. See {Sign}, and cf. {Design}, n., {Designate}.] 1. To draw preliminary outline or main features of; to sketch for a pattern or model; to delineate; to trace out; to draw. --Dryden. 2. To mark out and exhibit; to designate; to indicate; to show; to point out; to appoint. We shall see Justice design the victor's chivalry. --Shak. Meet me to-morrow where the master And this fraternity shall design. --Beau. & Fl. 3. To create or produce, as a work of art; to form a plan or scheme of; to form in idea; to invent; to project; to lay out in the mind; as, a man designs an essay, a poem, a statue, or a cathedral. 4. To intend or purpose; -- usually with for before the remote object, but sometimes with to. Ask of politicians the end for which laws were originally designed. --Burke. He was designed to the study of the law. --Dryden. Syn: To sketch; plan; purpose; intend; propose; project; mean.
\De*sign"\, v. i. To form a design or designs; to plan. {Design for}, to intend to go to. [Obs.] ``From this city she designed for Collin [Cologne].'' --Evelyn.
\De*sign"\, n. [Cf. dessein, dessin.] 1. A preliminary sketch; an outline or pattern of the main features of something to be executed, as of a picture, a building, or a decoration; a delineation; a plan. 2. A plan or scheme formed in the mind of something to be done; preliminary conception; idea intended to be expressed in a visible form or carried into action; intention; purpose; -- often used in a bad sense for evil intention or purpose; scheme; plot. The vast design and purpos? of the King. --Tennyson. The leaders of that assembly who withstood the designs of a besotted woman. --Hallam. A . . . settled design upon another man's life. --Locke. How little he could guess the secret designs of the court! --Macaulay. 3. Specifically, intention or purpose as revealed or inferred from the adaptation of means to an end; as, the argument from design. 4. The realization of an inventive or decorative plan; esp., a work of decorative art considered as a new creation; conception or plan shown in completed work; as, this carved panel is a fine design, or of a fine design. 5. (Mus.) The invention and conduct of the subject; the disposition of every part, and the general order of the whole. {Arts of design}, those into which the designing of artistic forms and figures enters as a principal part, as architecture, painting, engraving, sculpture. {School of design}, one in which are taught the invention and delineation of artistic or decorative figures, patterns, and the like. Syn: Intention; purpose; scheme; project; plan; idea. Usage: {Design}, {Intention}, {Purpose}. Design has reference to something definitely aimed at. Intention points to the feelings or desires with which a thing is sought. Purpose has reference to a settled choice or determination for its attainment. ``I had no design to injure you,'' means it was no part of my aim or object. ``I had no intention to injure you,'' means, I had no wish or desire of that kind. ``My purpose was directly the reverse,'' makes the case still stronger. Is he a prudent man . . . that lays designs only for a day, without any prospect to the remaining part of his life? --Tillotson. I wish others the same intention, and greater successes. --Sir W. Temple. It is the purpose that makes strong the vow. --Shak.