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contours

[kon-toor]

Origin

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noun

the outline of a figure or body; the edge or line that defines or bounds a shape or object.

contour line.

Phonetics. a distinctive pattern of changes in pitch, stress, or tone extending across all or part of an utterance, especially across a sentence, and contributing to meaning.

verb (used with object)

to mark with contour lines.

to make or form the contour or outline of.

to build (a road, railroad track, etc.) in conformity with the contour of the land.

to mold or shape so as to fit a certain configuration: cars with seats that are contoured for comfort.

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Contours is always a great word to know.

So is interrobang. Does it mean:

the offspring of a zebra and a donkey.

a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question.

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adjective

molded or shaped to fit a particular contour or form: contour seats.

Agriculture. of or used in a system of plowing, cultivating, sowing, etc., along the contour lines of the land in order to trap water runoff and prevent erosion.

Origin:
1655–65; < French, equivalent to con- con- + tour a turn (see tour), modeled on Italian contorno, derivative of contornare to outline; see turn

Related forms

re·con·tour, verb (used with object)

un·con·toured, adjective

Synonyms
1. configuration, form, boundary.

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Etymonline

Word Origin & History

contour

1660s, a term in painting and sculpture, from Fr. contour "circumference, outline," from M.L. contornare "to go around," from L. com- intens. prefix + tornare "to turn in a lathe," from tornus "lathe" (see turn). First recorded application to topography is from 1769. Related:

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Contoured (1725). Contour line in geography is from 1844.

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Matching Quote

"Often, while contemplating works of art, not in their easily perceptible materiality, in the too-clear hieroglyphs of their contours or the obvious meaning of their subject, but in the soul with which they are endowed, in the atmospheric impression that they convey, in the spiritual light or darkness which they pour into our souls, I have felt entering into me a kind of vision of the childhood of their creators. Some little sorrow, some small pleasure of the child, inordinately inflated by an exquisite sensibility, become later on in the adult man, even without his knowing it, the basis of a work of art.... Genius is nothing but childhood clearly formulated, newly endowed with virile and powerful means of self-expression."

-Charles Baudelaire

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