texture

Borrowed from Middle French texture, borrowed from Latin textūra (“a weaving, web, texture, structure”), from textus, past participle of texere (“to weave”). See text. Doublet of tessitura.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈtɛkst͡ʃə(ɹ)/, /ˈtɛkʃt͡ʃə(ɹ)/
• (General American, Canada) IPA^(key): /ˈtɛkst͡ʃɚ/

  • Audio (California):

    (file)

  • Audio (Texas):

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• (General Australian, New Zealand) IPA^(key): /ˈtekst͡ʃə(ɹ)/
• Rhymes: -ɛkstʃə(ɹ)

texture (countable and uncountable, plural textures)

1. The feel or shape of a surface or substance; the smoothness, roughness, softness, etc. of something.

   The beans had a grainy, gritty texture in her mouth.

2. (art) The quality given to a work of art by the composition and interaction of its parts.

   The piece of music had a mainly homophonic texture.

3. (computer graphics) An image applied to a polygon to create the appearance of a surface.
   • 2004, Will Smith, Maximum PC Guide to Building a Dream PC (page 97)

     The videocard is responsible for drawing every polygon, texture, and particle effect in every game you play.

4. (obsolete) The act or art of weaving.
   • 1650, Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica: […], 2nd edition, London: […] A[braham] Miller, for Edw[ard] Dod and Nath[aniel] Ekins, […], →OCLC:

     Skins, although a natural habit unto all before the invention of texture, was something more unto Adam.

5. (obsolete) Something woven; a woven fabric; a web.
   • a. 1749 (date written), James Thomson, “Spring”, in The Seasons, London: […] A[ndrew] Millar, and sold by Thomas Cadell, […], published 1768, →OCLC:

     Others, apart far in the grassy dale, / Or roughening waste, their humble texture weave.

   • 1667, John Milton, “Book X”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:

     Of richest texture spread

6. (biology, obsolete) A tissue.

texture (third-person singular simple present textures, present participle texturing, simple past and past participle textured)

1. To create or apply a texture.

   Drag the trowel through the plaster to texture the wall.

• “texture”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “texture”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.

Inherited from Middle French texture, borrowed from Latin textūra (“a weaving, web, texture, structure”), from textus, past participle of texere (“to weave”). See text.

• IPA^(key): /tɛk.styʁ/

• Audio:

  (file)

texture f (plural textures)

1. texture

• texte

• “texture”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Borrowed from English texture.

texture f (uncountable)

1. texture

textūre

1. vocative masculine singular of textūrus