delineator

English

Etymology

From delineate +‎ -or.

Noun

delineator (plural delineators)

1. One who, or that which, delineates.
   • 1988, Masahiko Aoki, Information, Incentives and Bargaining in the Japanese Economy, page 263:

     Each bureucratic entity seems to have two faces in its operation: one is that of a delineator of public interests in its jurisdiction, and the other is that of an agent representing the interests of its constituents vis-a-vis the other interests in the bureaucratic coordinating processes: budgetary, administrative, and planning.

   • 2005, M. C. Lyons, The Arabian Epic: Volume 1, Introduction, page 75:

     For example, in many situations the imperative of tension and a delineator of conflict may require that the hero be captured.

   • 2013, Sreedhar Nair, Computers in Critical Care and Pulmonary Medicine, page 35:

     Importantly, flow becomes the breath delineator that allows accurate calculations of all breath parameters.

   1. A road safety marker that indicates where traffic should go.
      • 1986, Helmut T. Zwahlen, Optimization of Post Delineator Height and Spacing, page 29:

        In fact, there is practically no change in the detection distances for the three lateral offset distances until the driver comes to within 400 feet of the first flexible post delineator.

      • 2003, Travel Better, Travel Longer, page 16:

        Delineators may also be considered as an alternative to illumination. The color of the delineators should be the same as the color of the pavement markings they supplement.

      • 2020, Dennis A. Bjorklund, DUI / DWI Defense: Preventing a Drunk Driving Arrest, page 108:

        On busy highways, use a road sign (speed limit, no passing zone, mile marker), building, scenic attraction, etc. Do not pick a delineator, unless there is a special grouping of them, because they all look the same.

      • 2022, BARC Civil Engineering (CE) Exam Prep Book, page 121:

        Using a delineator is an effective way to safely redirect traffic away from potentially harmful situations.

   2. One who makes line drawings.
      • 1834, Christianus Johannes Nieuwenhuys, A Review of the Lives and Works of Some of the Most Eminent Painters, page 257:

        Those who have the least idea of painting can easily conceive it was almost impossible for Vande Velde to paint on the open sea during the commotion of such an event; it was therefore necessary he should have recourse to drawing, to obtain the outlines of such objects and positions as he thought proper to delineate. It is from this circumstance that the writer has particularized him as a delineator instead of a painter.

      • 1857, A Handbook to the Water Colours, Drawings, and Engravings in the Art Treasures Exhibition, page 19:

        Robert Hills ( 1765-1844 ) was a delineator of cattle and farmyard scenes, somewhat in the style of Ibbetson.

      • 1811, John Stack, A Short System of Optics, page 160:

        The apparatus for delineation with this insturment consists simply of a moveable brass slide adapted to the horizontal side of the prism, and having a small hole in the middle of it: half of this hole is brought over the edge of the prism through which the image is transmitted to the eye; through the remaining part of the hole the delineator sees at the same time the point of his pencil which he passes over the lines of the image as they appear on his paper.

   3. One who depicts or describes a character.
      • 1856 July, Mary E. Fry, “Imperfect Delineation of Character”, in The Ladies' Repository, volume 16, page 429:

        As a delineator of character, a diviner of secrets, a searcher into the hearts and imaginations of men, Shakespeare does, and will doubtless continue to stand forth unrivaled among men.

      • 1894, Percy Russell, A Guide to British and American Novels, page 85:

        As a delineator of the old Irish peasant, Banim has few rivals.

      • 2023, Richard Bauman, Patrick Feaster, A Most Valuable Medium, page 108:

        While the article identifies him by reference to his established identity as a performer who objectifies and enacts a Yankee character—"a delineator of New England character” and “a representative 'Yankee' comedian”—it goes on to observe that “his Uncle Josh Weathersby records have made a decided hit,” calling attention to his new medium of performance and thus marking a critical turning point in his career.

2. A device to aid in the delineation of something.
   • 1852, The Art Journal, page 199:

     The delineator consists of an upright frame-work of wood, into which is placed a sheet of transparent glass; upon this a piece of the patentee's prepared material, also transparent, is placed, which serves instead of papter for the draughtsman.

   • 1890, Transactions of the Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland - Volume 33, page 74:

     The application of the principle of the delineator to such cases was very simple, but it would be difficult and perhaps useless to construct a delineator for a case where four or five wheels were running over the span.

   • 1967, Technical News Bulletin of the National Bureau of Standards, page 111:

     The ultramicrometer promises to have a variety of uses: as a strain gage to measure the deformation of structural materials, as a differential thermal expansion cell, as a contact-free delineator of surface profiles and contours, and as a means for measuring the diameters of balls and holes.

   • 2013, Yasuo Tarui, VLSI Technology, page 81:

     The field-emission electron-gun and vector-scan delineator is a direct wafer writing system using an electron beam for the fabrication of the VLSI patterns down to submicrometer dimensions. This delineator was realized by using a newly developed field-emission electron-gun, as described in Sect.2.2.1c.

   1. A perambulator which records distances and delineates a profile, as of a road.
   2. Any of various devices that aid a person in copying the outlines of a drawing or object, including the ability to enlarge or shrink the image.
      • 1905, Benjamin Grant Jefferis, James Lawrence Nichols, The Household Guide, Or, Domestic Cyclopedia:

        Now any one can easily make a delineator, by going to the hardware store and securing a few little screws, as shown in the cut, and then making or securing four little pieces of wood, as shown in the illustration, of about two feet in length.

      • 1994, Printing History - Volumes 16-17, page 37:

        Thus the delineator was used both to enlarge and reduce characters.

      • 2017, Tom Dunne, James Barry, 1741?806: History Painter:

        It is related by those who were his fellow pupils that there was no method or regularity in his study, that his hours of attending the galleries were uncertain, and often out of the ordinary time set apart by other artists, and his habit of copying the antiques the quickest, and what they considered the most un-artistlike, as he always employed and instrument called a delineator.

3. Any of various jobs that involve delineation, especially that of technical details.
   • 2023, The Coah-Makers' Illustrated Hand-Book, page 357:

     The beauty of a wood-cut depends on the skill of both the delineator and the engraver; that is to say, if a drawing is cleanly and sharply executed, and then placed in the hands of a competent engraver, the result will be a type which produces an attractive print.

   1. A technical illustrator.
      • 1906, Southern Practitioner, page 121:

        The splendid illustrations were prepared under the direct and personal supervision of Dr. Cunningham, and most excellent artists were employed on this part of the work, all of them showing up as high specimens of the delineator's art, and thoroughly elucidate the text.

      • 1994, Wilfrid Blunt, William Thomas Stearn, The Art of Botanical Illustration, page 51:

        Furthermore, we have purposely and deliberately avoided the obliteration of the natural form of the plants by shadows, and other less necessary things, by which delineators sometimes try to win artistic glory: and we have not allowed the craftsmen so to indulge their whims as to cause the drawing not to correspond accurately to the truth.

      • 2016, Trenton Campbell, Drawing: Materials, Techniques, Styles, and Practice:

        The delineator, or technical illustrator, converts preliminary or final drawings into pictorial representations, usually perspective constructions in full colour to help others visualize the product, to inform the public, to attract investment, or to promote sales.

   2. One who makes architectural drawings.
      • 1980, Barbara Sicherman, Carol Hurd Green, Notable American Women: The Modern Period, page 293:

        The art of the delineator was fully recognized in the early years of the century, and such drawings were often signed, Griffin's by her distinctive monogram.

      • 1983, Jules Vallée Guérin, Jules Guerin, Master Delineator: An Exhibition, page 5:

        The professional architectural delineator or renderer came into prominence during the second half of the nineteenth century in England and America.

      • 1999, Gerald F. Brommer, Joseph A. Gatto, Careers in Art: An Illustrated Guide, page 34:

        After listening to the ideas of the client and the architect, and collecting information from other members of the architectural team, the delineator will first make some quick sketches.

      • 2023, Bob Hartnett, The Bootleg Homes of Frank Lloyd Wright, page 26:

        Wright had outgrown his position as a tracer, and by 1887, he was working as a delineator.

   3. One who assembles a complete technical description of wetlands.
      • 1995, Federal Register - Volume 60, Issues 47-50, page 13658:

        The issuance of a certification does not create or grant any property interest or right for the certified wetland delineator, nor does it create any rights for an individual relying upon a wetland delineation made by a certified wetaland delineator, but is intended to facilitate the determination of jurisdiction by the Corps.

      • 2000, Birute Vanatta, Guide for Industrial Waste Management, pages 4-7:

        The delineation procedure, with which to become familiar with before hiring a delineator, involves collecting maps, aerial photographs, plant data, soil surveys, stream gauge data, land use data, and other information.

      • 2011, John G. Lyon, Lynn Krise Lyon, Practical Handbook for Wetland Identification and Delineation, page 168:

        If the regulators and the delineator can agree on a boundary, the work of the inspection is done and the permit will likely go forward to the next step.

4. (computing) Synonym of delimiter.
   • 1998, James Hay, Reference MWAPI, page 156:

     The values listed for fontstyle are combined using the comma as a delineator: BOLD, ULINE.

   • 2003, Ellen Siever, Stephen Figgins, Aaron Weber, Linux in a Nutshell, page 734:

     "gawk" is the GNU version of "awk", a powerful pattern-matching program for processing text files that may be composed of fixed- or variable-length records separated by some delineator ( by default, a newline character).

   • 2019, Margot Tollefson, R Quick Syntax Reference, page 195:

     The argument "eol" is an argument of mode character and gives the end of line delineator.

5. (grammar) A suffix used in some Melanesian languages that acts like a determiner and signals that the noun to which it is attached can be used as an agent.
   • 1995, Mark Durie, “Of Linguistic Evolution and the Notion 'X has a Function Y'”, in Werner Abraham, Talmy Givón, Sandra A. Thompson, editor, Discourse Grammar and Typology, page 292:

     Thus certain nouns are inherently potential agents, and any other noun can be turned into one by the suffixation of the delineator.

   • 1997, Language and Linguistics in Melanesia, page 80:

     in fact Scott further includes the class 'Potential Agent' as outranking Human on this scale, defining it as 'any proper noun representing an animate being, any personal pronoun, any inalienably-possessed kin term, or any term to which the delineator has been added. (emphasis ours).

   • 2009, Ina Bornkessel, Matthias Schlesewsky, Bernard Comrie, Semantic Role Universals and Argument Linking, page 199:

     If the agent and the patient roles are distributed against the animacy hierarchy, the agent is marked by the ergative suffix -ma (when attached to nounds denoting humans)/-wama (when attached to nounds denoting nonhumans) which is called 'delineator' by Scott (1978: 100-103).

   • 2018, András Bárány, Person, Case, and Agreement, page 135:

     An inanimate transitive subject can be made to conform to the restriction by adding a delineator to it.

Translations

one who, or that which, delineates

• German: Leitpfosten m (road sign)
• Irish: línitheoir m
• Portuguese: delineador m
• Spanish: delineador (es) m

Anagrams

• lanreotide, leonardite, rondeletia

Latin

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /deː.liː.neˈaː.tor/, [d̪eːlʲiːneˈäːt̪ɔr]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /de.li.neˈa.tor/, [d̪elineˈäːt̪or]

Verb

dēlīneātor

1. second/third-person singular future passive imperative of dēlīneō