design

Etymology

From Old French designer, from Latin designō (“I mark out, point out, describe, design, contrive”), from de- (or dis-) + signō (“I mark”), from signum (“mark”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /dɪˈzaɪn/
• Hyphenation: de‧sign

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aɪn

Noun

design (countable and uncountable, plural designs)

1. A plan (with more or less detail) for the structure and functions of an artifact, building or system.
2. A pattern, as an element of a work of art or architecture.
3. The composition of a work of art.
4. Intention or plot.

   To be hateful of the truth by design.

   • M. Le Page Du Pratz, History of Louisisana (PG), p. 40:

     I give it you without any other design than to shew you that I reckon nothing dear to me, when I want to do you a pleasure.

   • 1762, Charles Johnstone, The Reverie; or, A Flight to the Paradise of Fools‎, volume 2, Dublin: Printed by Dillon Chamberlaine, OCLC 519072825, page 202:

     At length, one night, when the company by ſome accident broke up much ſooner than ordinary, ſo that the candles were not half burnt out, ſhe was not able to reſiſt the temptation, but reſolved to have them ſome way or other. Accordingly, as ſoon as the hurry was over, and the ſervants, as ſhe thought, all gone to ſleep, ſhe ſtole out of her bed, and went down ſtairs, naked to her ſhift as ſhe was, with a deſign to ſteal them […]

   • 2011 June 28, Piers Newbery, “Wimbledon 2011: Sabine Lisicki beats Marion Bartoli”, in BBC Sport‎:

     Lisicki will rise from her current ranking of 62 to at least 35 in the world on the back of her efforts at the All England Club, but she will have serious designs on a first Grand Slam title after overcoming the 2007 runner-up.

5. The shape or appearance given to an object, especially one that is intended to make it more attractive.
   • 1963, Margery Allingham, “Foreword”, in The China Governess‎:

     He turned back to the scene before him and the enormous new block of council dwellings. The design was some way after Corbusier but the block was built up on plinths and resembled an Atlantic liner swimming diagonally across the site.

6. The art of designing

   Danish furniture design is world-famous.

Verb

design (third-person singular simple present designs, present participle designing, simple past and past participle designed)

1. (transitive) To plan and carry out (a picture, work of art, construction etc.). [from 17th c.]
   • 1863, Sheridan Le Fanu, The House by the Churchyard

     She designed his retirement from the Royal Irish Artillery, and had negociated an immediate berth for him on the Staff of the Commander of the Forces, and a prospective one in the household of Lord Townshend […]

   • 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 1, in The China Governess‎:

     The huge square box, parquet-floored and high-ceilinged, had been arranged to display a suite of bedroom furniture designed and made in the halcyon days of the last quarter of the nineteenth century, when modish taste was just due to go clean out of fashion for the best part of the next hundred years.

2. (obsolete, intransitive) To plan (to do something).

   The king designed to mount an expedition to the New World.

3. (obsolete, transitive) To assign, appoint (something to someone); to designate. [16th-19th c.]
   • 1646, Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica, I.10:

     he looks not below the Moon, but hath designed the regiment of sublunary affairs unto inferiour deputations.

   • Dryden

     He was designed to the study of the law.

4. (obsolete, transitive) To mark out and exhibit; to designate; to indicate; to show; to point out; to appoint.
   • Shakespeare

     We shall see / Justice design the victor's chivalry.

   • Beaumont and Fletcher

     Meet me to-morrow where the master / And this fraternity shall design.

Further reading

• design in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
• design in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911
• design at OneLook Dictionary Search

Anagrams

• Edgins, deigns, dinges, gnides, nidges, sdeign, signed, singed

Etymology

Borrowed from English design.

Pronunciation

• Audio

  (file)

• Hyphenation: de‧sign

Noun

design n (plural designs)

1. design

Etymology

Borrowed from English design.

Noun

design

1. design

Etymology

Borrowed from English design.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /di.zajn/

Noun

design m (plural designs)

1. design

Etymology

Borrowed from English design.

Noun

design m (invariable)

1. design (industrial)

Anagrams

• sdegni

Etymology

Borrowed from English design.

Noun

design m (plural designs)

1. design (plan)

Etymology

Borrowed from English design.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /dɛˈsajn/

Noun

design c

1. a design