Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Fresco |
FrescoNoun1. A mural done with watercolors on wet plaster. 2. A durable method of painting on a wall by using watercolors on wet plaster. Verb1. Paint onto wet plaster on a wall. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "fresco" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1350. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Computing | Fresco 1. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
The painting term fresco (plural, "frescoes," from the Italian "fresh") comes from the Italian phrase buon fresco, ("really fresh") a technical term in opposition to in secco ("on dry surface"). True, or buon fresco, technique consists of painting in pigment in a water medium on wet or fresh plaster. In secco painting is done on dry plaster and with the pigments in a binding medium, like egg. The difference between the two techniques is that the wet plaster as it dries absorbs the pigment and the painting becomes part of the wall surface rather than resting on top of it. This makes a very durable work of art; if the wall is destroyed the painting can often be reassembled because of the size of the plaster parts.
Because of the need to work on freshly laid plaster, careful study of the wall surface can reveal the area worked on in one day, commonly called in Italy in the Renaissance a giornata or a "daily amount." These divisions are perceptible with mild magnification (or even the naked eye if the plastering technique was not good).
Painters in fresco will often add details later in secco.
Egyptian wall paintings in tombs are usually in secco, while the Roman wall paintings at Pompeii and Herculaneum are in fresco.
See also: Mural
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Fresco."
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Air | Adverb: in the open air, a la belle etoile, al fresco; sub jove dio. |
Cold | Noun: cold, coldness. Adjective: frigidity, inclemency, fresco. |
Exteriority | In the open air; sub Jove, sub dio; a la belle etoile, al fresco. |
Painting | Picture, painting, piece, tableau, canvas; oil painting; fresco, cartoon; easel picture, cabinet picture, draught, draft; pencil; drawing, water color drawing, etching, charcoal, pen-and-ink; sketch, outline, study. |
Pallet, palette; easel; brush, pencil, stump; black lead, charcoal, crayons, chalk, pastel; paint; (coloring matter); watercolor, body color, oil color; oils, oil paint; varnish; a, priming; gouache, tempera, distemper, fresco, water glass; enamel; encaustic painting; mosaic; tapestry. | |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Fresco |
| English words defined with "fresco": Frescoed, Frescoes, Frescoing, Frescos ♦ Painting in secco ♦ Secco painting. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "fresco": DILLENIA INDICA ♦ PASSIFLORA SEEMANNII ♦ Stations. (references) |
| Etymologies containing "fresco": Frescade. (references) |
| Non-English Usage: "Fresco" is also a word in the following languages with English translations in parentheses. Italian (blooming, breezy, chilly, cool, coolness, crisp, fresh, green, new, recent, shady, virgin, wet), Portuguese (bonny, buxom, caller, chilled, chilly, cool, crisp, finicky, fresco, fresh, good, new, prissy, recent, sweet, term applied to wines containing adequate but not excess acidity), Spanish (brisk, cheeky, cool, crisp, familiar, forward, fresco, fresh, fresh air, green, impudent person, new, recent, sassy, saucebox, saucy, sweet, warm, wet). |
| Domain | Usage | |
Movie/TV Titles | Fresco y Batata (1973) Heart Beat Fresco (1966) Al Fresco (1930) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
Books |
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Music |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | Interior, detail of south wall. Photograph by Jack E. Boucher, August 1970. (Reproduction Number: HABS TENN,19-NASH,13-7) The interior columns, moldings, and illusionistic fresco ornament shown here along the south wall of Nashville’s First Presbyterian Church are in the Egyptian Revival style, an exotic style of architecture that became popular in the first half of the nineteenth century following Napoleon’s conquests. The Egyptian Revival style is noted for its lotus-leaf-inspired capitals, bulging columns, and Egyptian gorges, the dramatically curved cornice topping many Egyptian buildings. Begun in 1849 by William Strickland, the architect of the Tennessee State Capitol, this is the largest and best-preserved Egyptian Revival church in the United States. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | [Medicine and religion] : [St. Michael's, Fresco of Cosmas and Damian]. Credit: National Library of Medicine. |
 | Cathedral of the Annuciation (1560-84), interior, west wall, fresco of Last Judgment, Sol'vychegodsk, Russia. Credit: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540. |  | Nativity-St. Ferapont Monastery, Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin (1490), interior, fresco of Christ Pantokrator by Dionysii and assistants (1502), Ferapontovo, Russia. Credit: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540. |
 | Church of Elijah the Prophet (1647-50), west entrance, with fresco of the Crucifixion, Yaroslavl', Russia. Credit: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540. |  | Ridotto al' fresco, or the humours of spring gardens. Credit: Library of Congress. |
 | Apotheosis of Washinggton, fresco in the canopy of the dome, Rotunda of The United States Capitol. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | U.S. Capitol frescoes. Fresco in Foreign Affairs Room in U.S. Capitol. Credit: Library of Congress. |
 | Paintings. Constitution fresco in Potomac Electric Power Co. Building. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | Potomac Electric Power Co. Fresco painting at Potomac Electric Power Co. I. Credit: Library of Congress. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
 |  |
| "Old Fresco" by Emmanuel Rivet Commentary: "An old fresco on the wall of an amphitheater in the University of La Sorbonne, Paris. 2000." | "Al Fresco" by Paige Foster Commentary: "A couple of people having something to eat outdoors. The restaurant is part of Bellevue Square mall." |
Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers. | |
| "Fresco" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 84.46% of the time. "Fresco" is used about 148 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 84.46% | 125 | 28,650 |
| Noun (proper) | 15.54% | 23 | 72,767 |
| Total | 100.00% | 148 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "fresco": al fresco ♦ painting in fresco. Additional references. | |
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "fresco": fresco-like, fresco-painting. | |
Ending with "fresco": al-fresco, floor-fresco, wall-fresco. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "fresco"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | pikturë muri (mural), bëj afreske, afresk (mural). (various references) | |
Arabic | لوحة جصية, تصوير الجصي, رسم لوحة جصية. (various references) | |
Bulgarian | стенопис (mural, wall painting), стенна живопис, украсявам със стенопис, фреска (mural, wall painting). (various references) | |
Chinese | 壁畫 (mural). (various references) | |
Czech | freska. (various references) | |
Danish | freskomaleri, fresko. (various references) | |
Dutch | fresko, fresco. (various references) | |
Finnish | kalkkimaalaus. (various references) | |
French | fresque. (various references) | |
German | freskomalerei, fresko. (various references) | |
Greek | τοιχογραφία (mural, wall painting). (various references) | |
Hebrew | תמשיח. (various references) | |
Hungarian | freskó (mural). (various references) | |
Italian | affresco. (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 壁画 (mural, wall painting). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | フラスコ (flask), へきが (mural, wall painting). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | escofray.(various references) | |
Portuguese | fresco (bonny, buxom, caller, chilly, cool, crisp, finicky, good, new, prissy, recent, sweet). (various references) | |
Romanian | frescã. (various references) | |
Russian | фреска (mural, wall-painting). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | freska, slikati freske. (various references) | |
Spanish | fresco (brisk, cheeky, cool, crisp, familiar, forward, fresh, fresh air, green, impudent person, new, recent, sassy, saucebox, saucy, sweet, warm, wet). (various references) | |
Swedish | fresk. (various references) | |
Turkish | fresk yapmak, fresk (wall painting). (various references) | |
Ukrainian | фреска (mural, wall painting), прикрашати фресками. (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| Italian | 900-Modern | fresco. (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "fresco": frescoed, frescoer, frescoers, frescoes, frescoing, frescos. (additional references) | |
Words ending with "fresco": alfresco. (additional references) | |
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"Fresco" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Brescot, Feco, Fedco, fersc, Fiesca, fiesco, frasch, frec, Frecon, Frecs, Freece, fresc, fresca, frescoe, Fresko, Friesch, Friso, Hrensko, Prescod, Riesco, Sforzesco, tresckow, Tresgoz. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "fresco" (pronounced fre"skō) |
| 3 | -s k ō | Cisco, disco, fiasco, Roscoe. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
Direct Anagrams: forces. | |
| Words within the letters "c-e-f-o-r-s" | |
-1 letter: ceros, cores, corse, force, fores, froes, score. | |
-2 letters: cero, core, corf, cors, eros, foes, fore, froe, orcs, ores, recs, refs, rocs, roes, rose, serf, sore. | |
-3 letters: cor, cos, efs, ers, fer, foe, for, fro, oes, orc, ore, ors, ose, rec, ref, res, roc, roe, sec, ser. | |
-4 letters: ef, er, es, oe, of, or, os. | |
| Words containing the letters "c-e-f-o-r-s" | |
+1 letter: coffers, confers, focuser, forceps, forcers, frescos, refocus, scoffer. | |
+2 letters: alfresco, coffrets, coinfers, comfreys, conifers, crofters, deforces, defrocks, enforces, focusers, forcipes, forecast, forensic, fornices, frescoed, frescoer, frescoes, frounces, fructose, officers, orifices, prefocus, scoffers. | |
+3 letters: codifiers, coiffeurs, coiffures, conferees, confervas, confessor, confiders, confiners, confreres, confuters, crossfire, defectors, ecofreaks, effectors, enforcers, factories, falconers, fencerows, ferocious, firelocks, florences, fluoresce, footraces, forceless, forecasts, foreclose, foredecks, forefaces, forelocks, forensics, foreshock, fossicker, fourscore, frescoers, frescoing, fructoses, fruticose, infectors, offscreen, overfocus, perfectos, refocused, refocuses, scorified, scorifies, softcover. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Crosswords 3. Usage: Modern 4. Usage: Commercial | 5. Images: Slideshow 6. Images: Photo Album 7. Images: Digital Art 8. Usage Frequency | 9. Expressions 10. Expressions: Internet 11. Translations: Modern 12. Translations: Ancient | 13. Derivations 14. Rhymes 15. Anagrams 16. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
