Your ShelfYour Projects
Webster's Dictionary (1865)

2 entries under this word

Perspective

Per-spēc'tive, a.

adjective

a. [Fr. perspectif, Pr. perspectiv, Sp. perspectivo, from Lat. perspicere, perspectum, to look through, from the prefix per, through, and spicere, to look.]

Sense 1. Pertaining to the science of optics, or vision; optical. [Obs.] Bacon.

Sense 2. Pertaining to the art, or in accordance with the laws, of perspective.

Perspective plane, the plane on which the representation is made, distinguished from the ground plane, which is that on which the objects are represented as standing. When this plane is oblique to the principal face of the object, the perspective is called oblique perspective; when parallel to that face, parallel perspective.

Per-spêc'tive, n.

noun

n. [Fr. perspective, Pr. & Sp. perspectiva, It. perspettiva and prospettiva. See supra.]

Sense 1. A glass through which objects are viewed. [Obs.] “The word ἐσόπτρον, in the original of that passage, is not a perspective, but a mirror, or looking-glass.” Browne.

Sense 2. That which is seen through an opening; a view; a vista.

Sense 3. The art of making such a representation of an object upon a plane surface as shall present precisely the same appearance that the object itself would present to the eye situated at a particular point.

Sense 4. A kind of painting, designed expressly to deceive the sight by representing the continuation of an alley, a building, a landscape, or the like.

Aërial perspective, the art of giving due diminution to the strength of light, shade, and colors of objects, according to their distances and the quantity of light falling on them, and to the medium through which they are seen. — Isometrical perspective, a kind of perspective in which objects are viewed under a particular angle, so that three sides may be represented; isometrical projection. See ISOMETRICAL. — Linear perspective, the application of the principles of geometry to the accurate delineation of the principal lines of the picture.