Picture is an image that shows what something looks like. A picture might be a photograph you take with a camera, a drawing you make with crayons, or a painting hanging in a museum. When you look at a picture of your grandmother as a young woman, you're seeing a frozen moment from decades ago. When you draw a picture of your house, you're creating a visual record of what it looks like.

The word also means to imagine something in your mind. When your teacher says “picture yourself on a beach,” she wants you to create a mental image of sand, waves, and sun. When you read a novel and picture what the characters look like, you're using your imagination to see them even though no actual image exists on the page.

We use picture in several common phrases. When someone says they want to “get the full picture,” they mean they want to understand the complete situation, including all its parts and details. If something is “picture-perfect,” it looks exactly right, like a scene so beautiful it could be in a photograph. And when you're “in the picture” about something, you're included and informed about what's happening.