student asking question

What does "painting a picture" mean? Is it same meaning with "think" and "image"?

teacher

Native speaker’s answer

Rebecca

"Painting a picture" here means "thoroughly describing". When you "paint a picture" of a something, you use a lot of descriptive words and information so the listener can have a thorough understanding of what you are saying, as though they are seeing a "picture" of it in their mind. Ex: The author paints a picture of her characters through her descriptions of them. Ex: My friend's description of his beach vacation painted a picture in my head of what it was like.

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