picturesque

• picture-skew (humorous)

From picture +‎ -esque, a calque of Italian pittoresco, from pittura (“a picture, painting”).

• IPA^(key): /pɪkt͡ʃəˈɹɛsk/

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picturesque (comparative more picturesque, superlative most picturesque)

1. Resembling or worthy of a picture or painting; having the qualities of a picture or painting; pleasingly beautiful.

   We looked down onto a beautiful, picturesque sunset over the ocean.

   • 1900, Charles W[addell] Chesnutt, “A Stranger from South Carolina”, in The House Behind the Cedars, Boston, Mass., New York, N.Y.: Houghton, Mifflin and Company […], →OCLC, page 3:

     A two minutes' walk brought Warwick—the name he had registered under, and as we shall call him—to the market-house, the central feature of Patesville, from both the commercial and the picturesque points of view.

   • 1946 March and April, R. A. H. Weight, “Euston to the North-West”, in Railway Magazine, page 71:

     A dear old lady said she thought the ancient castle at Conway most picturesque, but that it was a pity they put it so close to the railway!

2. Strikingly graphic or vivid; having striking and vivid imagery.

   picturesque language

• quaint
• scenic

• picturesquely
• picturesqueness

• “picturesque”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “picturesque”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.