Sample Sentences for
illustrate
grouped by contextual meaning
(editor-reviewed)

illustrate as in:  as illustrated by this example

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Pictures of flooding help to illustrate the problem of global warming.
illustrate = make clear
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    The example illustrates the belief.
    illustrates = makes clear
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    This diagram illustrates the relationships I've mentioned.
    illustrates = helps make clear
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    A pie chart showing expense by category would be illustrative.
    illustrative = serving to help explain or demonstrate something
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    Here was one more illustration of how our secret was no secret at all.  (source)
    illustration = demonstration
    standard suffix: The suffix "-tion", converts a verb into a noun that denotes the action or result of the verb. Typically, there is a slight change in the ending of the root verb, as in action, education, and observation.
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    The minister related many a touching incident in the lives of the departed, too, which illustrated their sweet, generous natures, and the people could easily see, now, how noble and beautiful those episodes were, and remembered with grief that at the time they occurred they had seemed rank rascalities, well deserving of the cowhide.  (source)
    illustrated = helped make clear
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    He ground his teeth again and told a story to illustrate his point.  (source)
    illustrate = help make clear
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    ...and is whipped for being hard to please! I have an abundance of such illustrations of the same principle, drawn from my own observation, but think the cases I have cited sufficient.  (source)
    illustrations = stories to clarify or demonstrate
    standard suffix: The suffix "-tions", converts a verb into a plural noun that denotes results of the verb. Typically, there is a slight change in the ending of the root verb, as in actions, illustrations, and observations.
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    This sentence clearly illustrates that she's not exactly what you'd call modest!  (source)
    illustrates = helps make clear
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    "It sort of floated toward me," said Ron, illustrating the movement with his free index finger, "right to my chest, and then — it just went straight through."  (source)
    illustrating = demonstrating
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    Somewhere in the middle of these three illustrative points, Mrs. Glass had left off listening and sat down.†  (source)
    standard suffix: The suffix "-ive" converts a word into an adjective; though over time, what was originally an adjective often comes to be used as a noun. The adjective pattern means tending to and is seen in words like attractive, impressive, and supportive. Examples of the noun include narrative, alternative, and detective.
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    For one thing, a pastor's wife has to put up with being used as a sermon illustration a lot.  (source)
    illustration = example (to help clarify or demonstrate)
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    We all waited patiently for father's story to develop, because we knew he had a way of telling stories that very clearly illustrated the point he wanted to make.  (source)
    illustrated = helped make clear
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    "We're talkin' humongous rattraps." Garrett held his hands a foot apart to illustrate.  (source)
    illustrate = help make clear
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illustrate as in:  an illustrated children's book

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I write and illustrate children's books.
illustrate = draw pictures to accompany
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    The assembly directions include illustrations to identify each part.
    illustrations = drawings
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    The magazine is called "Sports Illustrated" because of the photos.
    illustrated = with pictures
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    Many months later, he would also paint over the cover of that book and give it a new title, after one of the stories he would write and illustrate inside it.  (source)
    illustrate = draw pictures to accompany
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    Inside were a pair of moccasins and an illustrated New Testament.  (source)
    illustrated = accompanied by drawings
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    I told him I'd write a story and he could do the illustrations for it.  (source)
    illustrations = drawings or photographs
    standard suffix: The suffix "-tions", converts a verb into a plural noun that denotes results of the verb. Typically, there is a slight change in the ending of the root verb, as in actions, illustrations, and observations.
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    The shape of the hill and the skull pattern of the stones both matched the illustration perfectly.  (source)
    illustration = drawing
    standard suffix: The suffix "-tion", converts a verb into a noun that denotes the action or result of the verb. Typically, there is a slight change in the ending of the root verb, as in action, education, and observation.
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    She used to be a children's-book illustrator.  (source)
    illustrator = someone who draws pictures to accompany a book or other writing
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    The fireplace was an old one, built by some Dutch merchant long ago, and paved all round with quaint Dutch tiles, designed to illustrate the Scriptures.  (source)
    illustrate = show with pictures
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    Or a kid with a brand-new box of crayons illustrating his science lesson: ROY G BIV.  (source)
    illustrating = drawing pictures to accompany
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    Newspaper correspondents and reporters and illustrators from such distant cities as Buffalo, Rochester, Chicago, New York and Boston, were already arriving as everybody knew or saw, to either interview or make sketches or take photos of Clyde, Mason, the surviving members of the Alden family, et cetera, while locally Mason was the recipient of undiluted praise, even the Democratic voters in the county joining with the Republicans in assuring each other that Mason was all right, that he was handling this young murderer in the way that he deserved to be handled, and that neither the wealth of the Griffiths nor of the family of that rich girl whom he appeared to have been trying to capture, was†  (source)
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    "Do you enjoy pictures?" he asked, picking up an illustrated guide to the Louvre that he had borrowed from the basement.  (source)
    illustrated = accompanied by pictures or drawings
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    Some of the potions had effects almost too gruesome to think about, and there were some very unpleasant illustrations, which included a man who seemed to have been turned inside out and a witch sprouting several extra pairs of arms out of her head.  (source)
    illustrations = pictures
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    At Hamilton Field, an artist was working his way down the planes, painting each one's name and accompanying illustration.  (source)
    illustration = drawing
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