perspective

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A view or vista.
2. n. A mental view or outlook: "It is useful occasionally to look at the past to gain a perspective on the present” ( Fabian Linden).
3. n. The appearance of objects in depth as perceived by normal binocular vision.
4. n. The relationship of aspects of a subject to each other and to a whole: a perspective of history; a need to view the problem in the proper perspective.
5. n. Subjective evaluation of relative significance; a point of view: the perspective of the displaced homemaker.
6. n. The ability to perceive things in their actual interrelations or comparative importance: tried to keep my perspective throughout the crisis.
7. n. The technique of representing three-dimensional objects and depth relationships on a two-dimensional surface.
8. adj. Of, relating to, seen, or represented in perspective.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. Optical; used in viewing or prospecting: used especially in the phrase perspective glass—that is, a telescope, and specifically a terrestrial as distinguished from an astronomical telescope.
2. Of or pertaining to the art of representing solid objects upon a flat surface.
3. Represented in perspective; throughly and duly proportioned in its parts; not anamorphous or distorted; true: as, a perspective plan. See II.
4. n. A reflecting glass or combination of glasses producing some kind of optical delusion or anamorphous effect when viewed in one way, but presenting objects in their true forms when viewd in another.
5. n. A magnifying-glass; a telescope; a spy-glass.
6. n. The art of representing solid objects on a flat surface so that when they are viewed the eye is affected in the same manner as it would be by viewing objects themselves from a given point. By perspective, in common language, is meant linear perspective, or the art of delineating the outlines of objects, of their shadows, and of their reflections. The theory is that the positions of the delineated points in the picture are such that if rays, or straight lines, were drawn from the corresponding original points in the natural objects to the eye of the spectator, and if the picture were then interposed in the right position, it would be pierced by these rays st the points of delineation. It follows that perspective supposes that a picture is to be looked at with one eye placed in a particular position; and if it be otherwise looked at, the perspective necessarily appears false. This position of the eye, called the station point, or point of sight (which phrase with old writers has, however, another meaning), is according to the directions of most treatises, placed much too near the picture to represent the mean position of a person looking at it. Artists consequently find it necessary to modify the forms which strict perspective would perscribe. To ascertain how an original line or plane (that is, a line or plane in nature) is to be dilineated, we have to consider, first, the intersecting point or line, also called the intersection of the original line or plane (that is, the point or line where the original line or plane, extended if necessary, cuts the plane of delineation, or the plane of the picture extended to infinity); and, second, the vanishing point of the original line, or the vanishing line of the original plane (that is, the poin or line where the plane of delineation is cut by a line or plane passing through the eye parallel to the original line or plane). An original line is represented by some portion of the line from its intersecting point to its vanishing point; and every line in a given original plane has its intersecting point on the intersecting line and its vanishing point on the vanishing line of that plane. It is also proper to consider the directing plane, or plane through the eye parallel to the picture; the directing line, or line in which the directing plane cuts an original plane; the directing point, or point in which the directing plane is pierced by an original line; and the director, or line from the eye to a directing point. It is furather necessary to take account of the direct radial, or principal visual ray, being the perpendicular let fall from the eye upon the plane of delineation; the center of the picture, or center of vision (called by old writeras the point of sight), being the foot of that perpendicular; and the principal distance, or distance of the picture, being the perpendicular distance of the plane of delineation from the eye. The ground-plane is the level plane on which the spectator is supposed to stand. The horizontal line, or horizon, is the line in which the level plane thorugh the eye cuts the picture, passing ordinarly through the center. This would better be termed the horizondal line at infinity, for, owing to the dip of the horizon (which see, under dip), it differs sensibly from the delineation of the true horizon. Linear perspective is merely a branch of descriptive geometry, itself an appliction of projective geometry. Perspective is intimately connected with the arts of design, and is particularly necessarly in the art of painting, as without a correct observances of Perspective no picture can have truth. Perspective is illustrated in the correct dellineation of even the simplest positions of objects.
7. n. A drawing or representation in perspective; specifically, a painting so placed at the end of an alley, a garden, or the like, as to presenst the appearance of continuing it, and thus produce the impression of greater length or extent. Stage scenic painting is of this nature.
8. n. Prospect; View; Vista.
9. n. Proper or just proportion; appropriate realtion of parts to one another and to the whole view, subject, etc.
10. In geometry, said of two figures when each point of one can be so paired with a point of the other that the joins of all the pairs concur in one point.

Wiktionary

1. n. A view, vista or outlook.
2. n. The appearance of depth in objects, especially as perceived using binocular vision.
3. n. The technique of representing three-dimensional objects on a two-dimensional surface.
4. n. figuratively The choice of a single angle or point of view from which to sense, categorize, measure or codify experience.
5. n. The ability to consider things in such relative perspective
6. n. A perspective optical glass, as used in a telescope.
7. n. By analogy, sound recording technique to adjust and integrate sound sources seemingly naturally
8. adj. obsolete providing visual aid
9. adj. of, in or relating to perspective

GNU Webster's 1913

1. adj. obsolete Of or pertaining to the science of vision; optical.
2. adj. Pertaining to the art, or in accordance with the laws, of perspective.
3. n. obsolete A glass through which objects are viewed.
4. n. That which is seen through an opening; a view; a vista.
5. n. The effect of distance upon the appearance of objects, by means of which the eye recognized them as being at a more or less measurable distance. Hence, aërial perspective, the assumed greater vagueness or uncertainty of outline in distant objects.
6. n. The art and the science of so delineating objects that they shall seem to grow smaller as they recede from the eye; -- called also linear perspective.
7. n. A drawing in linear perspective.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. the appearance of things relative to one another as determined by their distance from the viewer
2. n. a way of regarding situations or topics etc.