Alexander Pope
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To the modern mind, it's hard to believe that perspective had to be "discovered", but before the 1400s paintings simply lacked accurate perspective. Instead, important people and objects were simply shown larger than less important ones; and although distant objects were sometimes shown smaller than near ones, this wasn't done in a regular and accurate way. Just as odd, many paintings didn't represent the other meaning of perspective either—that is, a scene might not be shown as if it were being seen from one single place. Today, perspective is used much like standpoint. Just as standpoint once used to mean simply the physical place where you stand but today also means the way you "see" things as a result of who you are and what you do, the same could be said about perspective.
Synonyms
Examples of perspective in a Sentence
John Updike, New Yorker, 22 Oct. 2007
Courses offer an international perspective, so even a lesson on the American Revolution will interweave sources from Britain and France with views from the Founding Fathers.
—Claudia Wallis et al., Time, 18 Dec. 2006
Tipper and I still marvel at everything we saw and the perspective it offered. At a moment when the country was still in the throes of the conflict over Vietnam, it was refreshing to see the best of America.
—Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth, 2006
Christian Dashiell, Parents, 26 Apr. 2024
To put this in perspective, from 2014 to 2019, when electricity rate increases were much more gradual, the residential solar business in California had grown at a 14% annual average.
—Severin Borenstein, The Mercury News, 26 Apr. 2024
Fortunately, co-host Harold Ford Jr. was there to put it in proper perspective.
—Frank Scheck, The Hollywood Reporter, 26 Apr. 2024
And that change in perspective could result in Americans increasingly resembling Europeans.
—Ryan Hogg, Fortune Europe, 26 Apr. 2024
The 25-year-old musician had written about love before, but not from the perspective of having truly been put through the emotional wringer by way of a real, reciprocated relationship.
—Larisha Paul, Rolling Stone, 25 Apr. 2024
Good writing is born of mortality: the limits of our body and perspectives—the limits of our very lives.
—Rachel Khong, The Atlantic, 25 Apr. 2024
From an economic perspective, continuing to run the Wygen facilities makes sense, according to Shannon Anderson, an attorney with the Powder River Basin Resource Council, a Wyoming environmental group.
—Sammy Roth, Los Angeles Times, 25 Apr. 2024
How has Nyla Foster shifted the perspective in her more than a decade of work?
—J.m. Banks, Kansas City Star, 24 Apr. 2024
Popular Science, 7 Mar. 2024
Thinking of evolution in terms of singularities is a perspective shift for a field where processes are generally understood to unfold incrementally and slowly.
—Popular Science, 22 Feb. 2024
The cottages will be selling traditional food from their perspective countries.
—San Diego Union-Tribune, 1 Dec. 2022
Before facing DeMatha, Screen was taking standard college visits with other perspective students, unsure if high-level basketball was in his future.
—Akeem Glaspie, The Indianapolis Star, 9 Jan. 2024
The ordeal triggered a perspective shift for Khaled.
—Jeff Ihaza, Rolling Stone, 7 Nov. 2023
Download a photo editing app like Adobe Lightroom or Snapseed to access more features like healing and perspective correction.
—Stacey Leasca, Travel + Leisure, 13 Oct. 2023
The author used this prompt to generate images of an octopus-like robot:
Futuristic electrical octopus robot, technical design, perspective industrial design, copic style, cinematic high detail, moody grading, white background.
—IEEE Spectrum, 14 Oct. 2023
The result can be a perspective shift, even in areas of relative shelter from the effects of climate change.
—Millie Brigaud, The Christian Science Monitor, 15 Sep. 2023
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'perspective.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Dictionary Entries Near perspective
Cite this Entry
“Perspective.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/perspective. Accessed 29 Apr. 2024.
Copy CitationKids Definition
perspective
1 of 2 noun
perspective
2 of 2 adjective
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