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sculpture

nounverbcommon in dialogue

  • United Kingdom//ˈskʌlptj(ʊ)ə//
  • United Kingdom//ˈskʌlpt͡ʃə//
  • United States//ˈskʌlpt͡ʃɚ//

A three-dimensional work of art created by shaping malleable objects and letting them harden or by chipping away pieces from a rock (sculpting).

noun

  1. 1

    A three-dimensional work of art created by shaping malleable objects and letting them harden or by chipping away pieces from a rock (sculpting).

    There, too, in living sculpture, might be seen / The mad affection of the Cretan queen.

  2. 2

    More generally (since modernism), a three-dimensional work of art of any material or of mixed materials, whether sculpted, assembled, found, constructed or created using multiple techniques.

  3. 3

    Works of art created by sculpting, as a group.

  4. 4

    The three-dimensional ornamentation on the outer surface of a shell.

  5. 5

    archaicA printed picture, such as an engraving.

    Both are Tranſlated into Engliſh, Illuſtrated with Sculptures, and Printed about two Years ago.

Etymology

From Middle English sculpture, from Old French sculpture, from Latin sculptūra (“sculpture”), from sculpō (“to cut out, to carve in stone”).

verb

  1. 1

    To fashion something into a three-dimensional figure.

  2. 2

    To represent something in sculpture.

  3. 3

    To change the shape of a land feature by erosion etc.

Forms

plural
sculptures
past tense
sculptured
past participle
sculptured
present participle
sculpturing
third person singular
sculptures
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).