illustration

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

• n. The act of clarifying or explaining.
• n. The state of being clarified or explained.
• n. Material used to clarify or explain. See Synonyms at example.
• n. Visual matter used to clarify or decorate a text.
• n. Obsolete Illumination.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

• n. The act of illustrating; the act of making clear and distinct; education; also, the state of being illustrated, or of being made clear and distinct.
• n. That which illustrates; a comparison or example intended to make clear or apprehensible, or to remove obscurity.
• n. A picture designed to decorate a volume or elucidate a literary work.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English

• n. The act of illustrating; the act of making clear and distinct; education; also, the state of being illustrated, or of being made clear and distinct.
• n. That which illustrates; a comparison or example intended to make clear or apprehensible, or to remove obscurity.
• n. A picture designed to decorate a volume or elucidate a literary work.

from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

• n. The act of illustrating, or of rendering clear or obvious; explanation; elucidation; exemplification.
• n. The state of being illustrated or illumined.
• n. That which illustrates. Specifically
• n. A pictorial representation, map, etc., placed in a book or other publication to elucidate the text.
• n. Illustriousness; distinction.
• n. In music, same as development

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• n. artwork that helps make something clear or attractive
• n. an item of information that is typical of a class or group
• n. a visual representation (a picture or diagram) that is used make some subject more pleasing or easier to understand
• n. showing by example