Shadow vs Silhouette - What's the difference?
shadow | silhouette |
A dark image projected onto a surface where light (or other radiation) is blocked by the shade of an object.
*
, title=(The Celebrity), chapter=1
, passage=The stories did not seem to me to touch life. […] They left me with the impression of a well-delivered stereopticon lecture, with characters about as life-like as the shadows on the screen, and whisking on and off, at the mercy of the operator.}}
Relative darkness, especially as caused by the interruption of light; gloom, obscurity.
* Denham
* Spenser
(obsolete) A reflected image, as in a mirror or in water.
That which looms as though a shadow.
*
A small degree; a shade.
* Bible, James i. 17
An imperfect and faint representation.
* Bible, Hebrews x. 1
* Milton
One who secretly or furtively follows another.
* Milton
A type of lettering form of word processors that makes a cubic effect.
An influence, especially a pervasive or a negative one.
*
A spirit; a ghost; a shade.
* Shakespeare
(obsolete, Latinism) An uninvited guest accompanying one who was invited.
To block light or radio transmission.
(espionage) To secretly or discreetly track or follow another, to keep under surveillance.
To accompany a professional during the working day, so as to learn about an occupation one intends to take up.
(programming) To make an identifier, usually a variable, inaccessible by declaring another of the same name within the scope of the first.
(computing) To apply the shadowing process to (the contents of ROM).
An illustrated outline filled in with a solid color(s), usually only black, and intended to represent the shape of an object without revealing any other visual details; a similar appearance produced when the object being viewed is situated in relative darkness with brighter lighting behind it; a profile portrait in black, such as a shadow appears to be.
To represent by a silhouette; to project upon a background, so as to be like a silhouette.
English eponyms
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As nouns the difference between shadow and silhouette
is that shadow is a dark projected onto a surface where light (or other radiation) is blocked by the shade of an object while silhouette is an illustrated outline filled in with a solid color(s), usually only black, and intended to represent the shape of an object without revealing any other visual details; a similar appearance produced when the object being viewed is situated in relative darkness with brighter lighting behind it; a profile portrait in black, such as a shadow appears to be.As verbs the difference between shadow and silhouette
is that shadow is to block light or radio transmission while silhouette is to represent by a silhouette; to project upon a background, so as to be like a silhouette.shadow
English
(wikipedia shadow)Noun
(en noun)- Night's sable shadows from the ocean rise.
- In secret shadow from the sunny ray, / On a sweet bed of lilies softly laid.
- (Shakespeare)
- Hepaticology, outside the temperate parts of the Northern Hemisphere, still lies deep in the shadow' cast by that ultimate "closet taxonomist," Franz Stephani—a ghost whose ' shadow falls over us all.
- no variableness, neither shadow of turning
- He came back from war the shadow of a man.
- the law having a shadow of good things to come
- [types] and shadows of that destined seed
- Sin and her shadow Death
- Hence, horrible shadow !
- (Nares)
Usage notes
* A person (or object) is said to "cast", "have", or "throw" a shadow if that shadow is caused by the person (either literally, by eclipsing a light source, or figuratively). The shadow may then be described as the shadow "cast" or "thrown" by the person, or as the shadow "of" the person, or simply as the person's shadow.Derived terms
* backshadowing * foreshadowing * rain shadow * shadow acting * shadow boxing * shadow cabinet * shadow government * shadow minister * shadow play * shadow price * sideshadowing * unshadowVerb
(en verb)- Looks like that cloud's going to shadow us.
Derived terms
* overshadowsilhouette
English
(wikipedia silhouette)Noun
(en noun)- I could see a silhouette of a figure looking out from the window, but I couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman.