Definition of contour in English:

contour

noun ˈkɒntʊəˈkɑnˌtʊr

1usually contoursAn outline representing or bounding the shape or form of something.
轮廓；外形；周线，围线
she traced the contours of his face with her finger
她用手指描绘他的脸部轮廓。
figurative challenges that have shaped the contours of European integration
Example sentencesExamples
- Previous generations of humankind have revelled in the shape, the contours of the female form, but now, women seem to be being educated towards a near-parody of what nature originally intended.
- The rooms have shapes and contours that seem determined to disorientate, although the overall effect is striking and seductive.
- No independent existence for women outside of the patriarchal system that shaped the contours of their lives was possible.
- He traces the trajectory of the city's industrial growth and its rising immigrant population, describing how these processes in turn shaped the contours of class formation.
- But Rosa's life is also a very modern one, its broad contours shaped by global economic forces and its details modified by individual needs and personal enterprise.
- Events may have been shaped to fit the contours of a film script, but the emotional truth of the situations is vividly authentic.
- He was so perfectly shaped that all she wanted to do was trace the contours of his musculature and well formed face.
- As feminist theorists in the 1980s and 1990s proliferated differences in order to better represent the contours of twentieth-century life, science kept pace.
- The painter believes that he is going beyond shapes, contours and colours.
- We want to shape the contours of the research setting, by presenting the latest developments and by mapping the terrain of future exploration.
- A thick fluffy pillow was shaped to the contours of her head.
- Open linear shapes are the contours of nurses' stations, curved forms the sine waves of various organ-function monitors.
- Triangles provide stability and curved shapes soften the contours of objects.
- The images were precisely to scale, the contours actual traces of the plants themselves.
- Angles and curves, shapes and contours fascinate young minds.
- Intensity modulated radiotherapy is a developing new technology which can produce an even distribution of radiation dose within a target volume which follows the contours of an irregularly shaped tumour.
- There is an almost abstract flavour to his creations - speedy outlines and contours take shape on the canvas as he moves about in a blur.
- It's the shapes rather than the contours which attract us in Piero's painting.
- We take for granted the unique shapes and contours of ourselves, as easily as we forget, or perhaps don't consider, our ancestry.
- I traced the contours of it for a moment, wondering how much longer their dewy, life-like coloring would last.
Synonyms
outline, shape, form
lines, curves, figure
silhouette, profile
rare lineation
1. 1.1 An outline of a natural feature such as a hill.
  （天然地形的）轮廓
  the road climbs steadily, following the contours of the hillside
  Example sentencesExamples
  One of the things he most loves about that landscape is the way the stone walls that thread across the hills pick out the contours of the land.
  Lesson number two was how easy it is to be led away from your course by old tracks and the natural contours in the land.
  Go through the gate and take the path which heads west and then northwest following the contours of a small hill.
  The greens, all of different shapes and contours, all have an excellent putting surface.
  Before the invention of the fridge, the track, artfully cut into the contours of the hill, was used by muleteers to haul down snow to be stored in a deep pit, which can still be seen.
2. 1.2
  below the 1200-ft contour is a belt of limestone
  short for contour line
  Example sentencesExamples
  The job might be considerably easier if the driver could don a pair of glasses that superimposes the contours of the map right on the ground.
  Yet the map shows a broad swathe of relatively flat land skirting the foothills of the mountain at the 100ft / 33m contour, and extending up to Bundoran.
  In many cases the scale is not given, and in the littorals the bottom depth contours are not identified.
  If combined with the airborne laser scanner, the data can be used to develop digital terrain models, contours, intensity images and other elevation representations.
  These are represented by utility contours which indicate increased levels of happiness as we move away from the origin to higher levels of consumption of both goods.
3. 1.3 A line joining points on a diagram at which some property has the same value.
  等高线；恒值线
  the figure shows contours of 21-cm line emission of atomic hydrogen
  此图形标明原子氢的21厘米发射谱线的等高线。
  Example sentencesExamples
  It is noteworthy that this map closely matches the petrographic contours of the geological map.
  On a map without contours, two communities cut off from one another by an impassable mountain may appear as close neighbours.
  When I buy a house I get out the maps and study the contours, rejecting anything where there's the slightest chance of flooding.
  The contours show that the steepest gradients surround the Earth and Sun, with the five Earth Lagrange Points located in equilibrium regions with relatively gentle gradient.
  A built-in Mathematica algorithm was used to fit contours to a lattice of values calculated by numerical solution of Equation 11 and Equation 12.
2A way in which something varies, especially the pitch of music or the pattern of tones in an utterance.
（音调或声调的）升降曲线；变化方式
Example sentencesExamples
- In Korn's unfortunate sentence, where the ambiguities are structural, a skilled speaker could easily signal the desired analysis by differences in timing, pitch contour and voice quality.
- The propulsive contours Liszt assigns to the left hand all but vanished, thus attenuating texture and the work itself of its internecine dramas.
- More impressive still is his quicksilver dexterity in following the ever-changing contours of Sibelius' form.
- He wrote with great sympathy and imagination for the voice, imitating the melodic contours and rhythms of speech in what he called ‘speech melody’.
- Mathews brilliantly traces the precise contours of her mood swings, their pace and imagery, their irrational, irresistible force.
- Menissier favors rounded contours and smooth musical lines; I tend to prefer sharper-edged and more angular interpretations.
- Well, one sure way to butcher Scarlatti keyboard music is to use the piano to smooth over Scarlatti's sharp contours.
- The contour of the song from order to disorder isn't exactly revolutionary, but the change is gradual enough not to be obvious on the first couple of listens.
- For instance, on the excellent piano-driven waltz ‘Irish Elk,’ he just seems to be singing without any sense of melodic contour, and he fails to deliver a convincing hook.
- Regardless of the words, it seems the melodic contour of the song describes the nature of the land over which the song passes.
- Kom can have as many as eight phonetic tones including contours, or combinations of tones.
- Dialogues varying only in their intonation contour (specifically in pitch accent or boundary tone) were presented in a random order to 47 speakers of Midwestern American English.
- On the contrary, many compositions strive for more elaborate contours, rhythms, and harmonic structures.
- Does the contour of their accented tongues create a particular Hispanic laugh pattern?
- To be more precise, his phrase-final pitch contours range from slightly falling, to level, to sharply rising.
- Each sentence we speak has a pitch contour associated with it that can be broken down into smaller sequences of elementary contours associated with linguistic phenomena.
- The teacher then modulated the intonational contour until it corresponded to the first syllables of the word paleontologist.
- There are plenty of interesting things to say about these pitch contours, but irony and sarcasm are not an essential part of the discussion.
- I've seen someone who taught a Yorkshire terrier to imitate slowly rising pitch contours, and have myself sung along with a mutt who seemed to imitate motifs from George Jones and Mozart.
- His orchestral forces are reduced, tempos are uniformly brisk, contours are sharpened, and his textures are ‘lean and mean’.

verb ˈkɒntʊəˈkɑnˌtʊr

[with object]

1Mould into a specific shape, especially one designed to fit into something else.
使与某轮廓吻合
the compartment has been contoured with smooth rounded corners
这个车厢隔间的棱角光滑圆溜。
Example sentencesExamples
- The high back of the chair was contoured specifically to his own back.
- The clip, which is contoured neatly into the pen, is also a new design.
- In addition, they have a contoured back-supported seat that positions the user behind the pedals and 34 seat adjustment options for customization regardless of user height, according to the company.
- The strong sense of stability is created by large-diameter wheels positioned near the extreme corners of the body and by boldly contoured shoulder lines that run from the headlamps to the rear of the body.
- Of its many versions, there's one with a deeply contoured seat that looks frightening but is the most comfortable thing I've ever sat on.
- Its even more powerful appearance is reflected in a new frontal design with short body overhangs and a highly contoured rear end.
- Incidentally, all the car's seats are contoured and similar to those shaped for motor sport, providing all-round support.
- The layers can be stacked like 1-millimeter-thick pages of a book, and even contoured into desired shapes prior to heating.
- The outer edge is being cut to contour and then rolled into shape.
- Each unit in the series has custom tubing shapes, contoured cushions and a lower profile, which combine to create a clean, contemporary look that is engaging to exercisers.
- Workers need something contoured to fit them and their office aches and pains.
- Offer quality leather that is highly contoured or very soft to conform to a woman's body.
- All of his handles are contoured and rounded for the ultimate in user comfort, which has become his calling card.
- Constructed of shatter-resistant plastic, the compass has an oversized, contoured knob and an adjustable nut to accommodate pens, pencils and thin markers.
- Intrinsically feminine but contoured to the way that most women look, they are made on soft fabric.
- The seats are cloth-covered, contoured, soft, with improved back support and fold-up armrests; and passengers in standard class have an extra two inches of legroom.
- To circumvent this, it will be helpful if the seats are designed with a contoured shape since it will reduce or eliminate pressure points.
- With a few simple steps, you can transform this classically contoured design into a comfortable gliding rocker that will last for years to come.
- Surgeons have advanced in technique to shape and contour the deeper facial tissues and resuspend them.
Synonyms
shaped, contoured, fitting tightly, fitting well
1. 1.1 Shade (an area or areas of the face) with make-up, typically foundation or bronzer, in such a way as to accentuate or enhance the facial shape or structure.
  I prefer to only contour my cheeks
  no object it shouldn't look like you contour
2Mark (a map or diagram) with contour lines.
在（地图，图表）上标等高线
a variety of different data sources have been compiled to contour the maps
Example sentencesExamples
- It is important to note that these maps were hand contoured, and contour software packages were not used due to accuracy and availability of data in some units.
- Data from the first and second PC and the geographical coordinates for each breed were combined and plotted as contoured geographic maps using a geostatistical griding method.
- These spheres are then used to compute a three-dimensional density map which, when contoured, defines the surface of the gap region.
- Detectives can then see the results on screen as a contoured two or three-dimensional map which can help them to work out where the offender may be based.
- A full colour photograph, contoured map and additional facts about the history, geology and wildlife of the area accompany each route.
3(of a road or railway) follow the outline of (a topographical feature), especially along a contour line.
（公路，铁路）循地形轮廓（尤指循等高线）而行
the road contours the hillside
公路沿着山坡延伸。
Example sentencesExamples
- These roads contoured steep slopes above streams, and the aspect measured was that of the prevailing slope.
- The route continued contouring the south coast, the border regions, and the north coast on return to Dili.
- There were level parts contouring along the hillside where I sauntered past brilliant wildflowers or sharply aromatic herbs.

Origin

Mid 17th century: from French, from Italian contorno, from contornare 'draw in outline', from con- 'together'+ tornare 'to turn'.

Contour comes via French, from Italian contorno: this is from contornare ‘draw in outline’, from con- ‘together’ and tornare ‘to turn’.

Definition of contour in US English:

contour

nounˈkɑnˌtʊrˈkänˌto͝or

usually contours

1An outline, especially one representing or bounding the shape or form of something.
轮廓；外形；周线，围线
she traced the contours of his face with her finger
她用手指描绘他的脸部轮廓。
figurative the contours of American life
Example sentencesExamples
- But Rosa's life is also a very modern one, its broad contours shaped by global economic forces and its details modified by individual needs and personal enterprise.
- We want to shape the contours of the research setting, by presenting the latest developments and by mapping the terrain of future exploration.
- Events may have been shaped to fit the contours of a film script, but the emotional truth of the situations is vividly authentic.
- No independent existence for women outside of the patriarchal system that shaped the contours of their lives was possible.
- The rooms have shapes and contours that seem determined to disorientate, although the overall effect is striking and seductive.
- It's the shapes rather than the contours which attract us in Piero's painting.
- The painter believes that he is going beyond shapes, contours and colours.
- We take for granted the unique shapes and contours of ourselves, as easily as we forget, or perhaps don't consider, our ancestry.
- Intensity modulated radiotherapy is a developing new technology which can produce an even distribution of radiation dose within a target volume which follows the contours of an irregularly shaped tumour.
- A thick fluffy pillow was shaped to the contours of her head.
- I traced the contours of it for a moment, wondering how much longer their dewy, life-like coloring would last.
- There is an almost abstract flavour to his creations - speedy outlines and contours take shape on the canvas as he moves about in a blur.
- Open linear shapes are the contours of nurses' stations, curved forms the sine waves of various organ-function monitors.
- He traces the trajectory of the city's industrial growth and its rising immigrant population, describing how these processes in turn shaped the contours of class formation.
- Triangles provide stability and curved shapes soften the contours of objects.
- The images were precisely to scale, the contours actual traces of the plants themselves.
- As feminist theorists in the 1980s and 1990s proliferated differences in order to better represent the contours of twentieth-century life, science kept pace.
- Angles and curves, shapes and contours fascinate young minds.
- He was so perfectly shaped that all she wanted to do was trace the contours of his musculature and well formed face.
- Previous generations of humankind have revelled in the shape, the contours of the female form, but now, women seem to be being educated towards a near-parody of what nature originally intended.
Synonyms
outline, shape, form
1. 1.1 An outline of a natural feature such as a hill or valley.
  （天然地形的）轮廓
  cliffs with grassy rounded contours
  长满青草的圆形悬崖。
  Example sentencesExamples
  Before the invention of the fridge, the track, artfully cut into the contours of the hill, was used by muleteers to haul down snow to be stored in a deep pit, which can still be seen.
  Go through the gate and take the path which heads west and then northwest following the contours of a small hill.
  One of the things he most loves about that landscape is the way the stone walls that thread across the hills pick out the contours of the land.
  Lesson number two was how easy it is to be led away from your course by old tracks and the natural contours in the land.
  The greens, all of different shapes and contours, all have an excellent putting surface.
2. 1.2
  short for contour line
  Example sentencesExamples
  These are represented by utility contours which indicate increased levels of happiness as we move away from the origin to higher levels of consumption of both goods.
  Yet the map shows a broad swathe of relatively flat land skirting the foothills of the mountain at the 100ft / 33m contour, and extending up to Bundoran.
  The job might be considerably easier if the driver could don a pair of glasses that superimposes the contours of the map right on the ground.
  In many cases the scale is not given, and in the littorals the bottom depth contours are not identified.
  If combined with the airborne laser scanner, the data can be used to develop digital terrain models, contours, intensity images and other elevation representations.
3. 1.3 A line joining points on a diagram at which some property has the same value.
  等高线；恒值线
  the map shows contours of every 10-foot difference in elevation
  Example sentencesExamples
  On a map without contours, two communities cut off from one another by an impassable mountain may appear as close neighbours.
  The contours show that the steepest gradients surround the Earth and Sun, with the five Earth Lagrange Points located in equilibrium regions with relatively gentle gradient.
  It is noteworthy that this map closely matches the petrographic contours of the geological map.
  A built-in Mathematica algorithm was used to fit contours to a lattice of values calculated by numerical solution of Equation 11 and Equation 12.
  When I buy a house I get out the maps and study the contours, rejecting anything where there's the slightest chance of flooding.
4. 1.4 A way in which something varies, especially the pitch of music or the pattern of tones in an utterance.
  （音调或声调的）升降曲线；变化方式
  the movement tends to place more emphasis on rhythm than melodic contour
  Example sentencesExamples
  He wrote with great sympathy and imagination for the voice, imitating the melodic contours and rhythms of speech in what he called ‘speech melody’.
  Regardless of the words, it seems the melodic contour of the song describes the nature of the land over which the song passes.
  The propulsive contours Liszt assigns to the left hand all but vanished, thus attenuating texture and the work itself of its internecine dramas.
  In Korn's unfortunate sentence, where the ambiguities are structural, a skilled speaker could easily signal the desired analysis by differences in timing, pitch contour and voice quality.
  Well, one sure way to butcher Scarlatti keyboard music is to use the piano to smooth over Scarlatti's sharp contours.
  There are plenty of interesting things to say about these pitch contours, but irony and sarcasm are not an essential part of the discussion.
  The contour of the song from order to disorder isn't exactly revolutionary, but the change is gradual enough not to be obvious on the first couple of listens.
  Each sentence we speak has a pitch contour associated with it that can be broken down into smaller sequences of elementary contours associated with linguistic phenomena.
  Menissier favors rounded contours and smooth musical lines; I tend to prefer sharper-edged and more angular interpretations.
  Mathews brilliantly traces the precise contours of her mood swings, their pace and imagery, their irrational, irresistible force.
  Dialogues varying only in their intonation contour (specifically in pitch accent or boundary tone) were presented in a random order to 47 speakers of Midwestern American English.
  To be more precise, his phrase-final pitch contours range from slightly falling, to level, to sharply rising.
  Kom can have as many as eight phonetic tones including contours, or combinations of tones.
  Does the contour of their accented tongues create a particular Hispanic laugh pattern?
  More impressive still is his quicksilver dexterity in following the ever-changing contours of Sibelius' form.
  His orchestral forces are reduced, tempos are uniformly brisk, contours are sharpened, and his textures are ‘lean and mean’.
  For instance, on the excellent piano-driven waltz ‘Irish Elk,’ he just seems to be singing without any sense of melodic contour, and he fails to deliver a convincing hook.
  The teacher then modulated the intonational contour until it corresponded to the first syllables of the word paleontologist.
  I've seen someone who taught a Yorkshire terrier to imitate slowly rising pitch contours, and have myself sung along with a mutt who seemed to imitate motifs from George Jones and Mozart.
  On the contrary, many compositions strive for more elaborate contours, rhythms, and harmonic structures.

verbˈkɑnˌtʊrˈkänˌto͝or

[with object]

1usually be contouredMold into a specific shape, especially one designed to fit into something else.
使与某轮廓吻合
the compartment has been contoured with smooth rounded corners
这个车厢隔间的棱角光滑圆溜。
Example sentencesExamples
- Offer quality leather that is highly contoured or very soft to conform to a woman's body.
- The seats are cloth-covered, contoured, soft, with improved back support and fold-up armrests; and passengers in standard class have an extra two inches of legroom.
- Surgeons have advanced in technique to shape and contour the deeper facial tissues and resuspend them.
- Workers need something contoured to fit them and their office aches and pains.
- In addition, they have a contoured back-supported seat that positions the user behind the pedals and 34 seat adjustment options for customization regardless of user height, according to the company.
- With a few simple steps, you can transform this classically contoured design into a comfortable gliding rocker that will last for years to come.
- The clip, which is contoured neatly into the pen, is also a new design.
- The strong sense of stability is created by large-diameter wheels positioned near the extreme corners of the body and by boldly contoured shoulder lines that run from the headlamps to the rear of the body.
- All of his handles are contoured and rounded for the ultimate in user comfort, which has become his calling card.
- Incidentally, all the car's seats are contoured and similar to those shaped for motor sport, providing all-round support.
- The high back of the chair was contoured specifically to his own back.
- Each unit in the series has custom tubing shapes, contoured cushions and a lower profile, which combine to create a clean, contemporary look that is engaging to exercisers.
- The outer edge is being cut to contour and then rolled into shape.
- To circumvent this, it will be helpful if the seats are designed with a contoured shape since it will reduce or eliminate pressure points.
- Intrinsically feminine but contoured to the way that most women look, they are made on soft fabric.
- Its even more powerful appearance is reflected in a new frontal design with short body overhangs and a highly contoured rear end.
- The layers can be stacked like 1-millimeter-thick pages of a book, and even contoured into desired shapes prior to heating.
- Constructed of shatter-resistant plastic, the compass has an oversized, contoured knob and an adjustable nut to accommodate pens, pencils and thin markers.
- Of its many versions, there's one with a deeply contoured seat that looks frightening but is the most comfortable thing I've ever sat on.
Synonyms
shaped, contoured, fitting tightly, fitting well
1. 1.1 Shade (an area or areas of the face) with makeup, typically foundation or bronzer, in such a way as to accentuate or enhance the facial shape or structure.
  I prefer to only contour my cheeks
  no object it shouldn't look like you contour
2Mark (a map or diagram) with contour lines.
在（地图，图表）上标等高线
a variety of different data sources have been compiled to contour the maps
Example sentencesExamples
- Data from the first and second PC and the geographical coordinates for each breed were combined and plotted as contoured geographic maps using a geostatistical griding method.
- A full colour photograph, contoured map and additional facts about the history, geology and wildlife of the area accompany each route.
- Detectives can then see the results on screen as a contoured two or three-dimensional map which can help them to work out where the offender may be based.
- It is important to note that these maps were hand contoured, and contour software packages were not used due to accuracy and availability of data in some units.
- These spheres are then used to compute a three-dimensional density map which, when contoured, defines the surface of the gap region.
3(of a road or railroad) follow the outline of (a topographical feature), especially along a contour line.
（公路，铁路）循地形轮廓（尤指循等高线）而行
the road contours the hillside
公路沿着山坡延伸。
Example sentencesExamples
- The route continued contouring the south coast, the border regions, and the north coast on return to Dili.
- These roads contoured steep slopes above streams, and the aspect measured was that of the prevailing slope.
- There were level parts contouring along the hillside where I sauntered past brilliant wildflowers or sharply aromatic herbs.

Origin

Mid 17th century: from French, from Italian contorno, from contornare ‘draw in outline’, from con- ‘together’ + tornare ‘to turn’.

词汇	contour
释义	Definition of contour in English: contour noun ˈkɒntʊəˈkɑnˌtʊr 1usually contoursAn outline representing or bounding the shape or form of something. 轮廓；外形；周线，围线 she traced the contours of his face with her finger 她用手指描绘他的脸部轮廓。 figurative challenges that have shaped the contours of European integration Example sentencesExamples Previous generations of humankind have revelled in the shape, the contours of the female form, but now, women seem to be being educated towards a near-parody of what nature originally intended. The rooms have shapes and contours that seem determined to disorientate, although the overall effect is striking and seductive. No independent existence for women outside of the patriarchal system that shaped the contours of their lives was possible. He traces the trajectory of the city's industrial growth and its rising immigrant population, describing how these processes in turn shaped the contours of class formation. But Rosa's life is also a very modern one, its broad contours shaped by global economic forces and its details modified by individual needs and personal enterprise. Events may have been shaped to fit the contours of a film script, but the emotional truth of the situations is vividly authentic. He was so perfectly shaped that all she wanted to do was trace the contours of his musculature and well formed face. As feminist theorists in the 1980s and 1990s proliferated differences in order to better represent the contours of twentieth-century life, science kept pace. The painter believes that he is going beyond shapes, contours and colours. We want to shape the contours of the research setting, by presenting the latest developments and by mapping the terrain of future exploration. A thick fluffy pillow was shaped to the contours of her head. Open linear shapes are the contours of nurses' stations, curved forms the sine waves of various organ-function monitors. Triangles provide stability and curved shapes soften the contours of objects. The images were precisely to scale, the contours actual traces of the plants themselves. Angles and curves, shapes and contours fascinate young minds. Intensity modulated radiotherapy is a developing new technology which can produce an even distribution of radiation dose within a target volume which follows the contours of an irregularly shaped tumour. There is an almost abstract flavour to his creations - speedy outlines and contours take shape on the canvas as he moves about in a blur. It's the shapes rather than the contours which attract us in Piero's painting. We take for granted the unique shapes and contours of ourselves, as easily as we forget, or perhaps don't consider, our ancestry. I traced the contours of it for a moment, wondering how much longer their dewy, life-like coloring would last. Synonyms outline, shape, form lines, curves, figure silhouette, profile rare lineation 1.1 An outline of a natural feature such as a hill. （天然地形的）轮廓 the road climbs steadily, following the contours of the hillside Example sentencesExamples One of the things he most loves about that landscape is the way the stone walls that thread across the hills pick out the contours of the land. Lesson number two was how easy it is to be led away from your course by old tracks and the natural contours in the land. Go through the gate and take the path which heads west and then northwest following the contours of a small hill. The greens, all of different shapes and contours, all have an excellent putting surface. Before the invention of the fridge, the track, artfully cut into the contours of the hill, was used by muleteers to haul down snow to be stored in a deep pit, which can still be seen. 1.2 below the 1200-ft contour is a belt of limestone short for contour line Example sentencesExamples The job might be considerably easier if the driver could don a pair of glasses that superimposes the contours of the map right on the ground. Yet the map shows a broad swathe of relatively flat land skirting the foothills of the mountain at the 100ft / 33m contour, and extending up to Bundoran. In many cases the scale is not given, and in the littorals the bottom depth contours are not identified. If combined with the airborne laser scanner, the data can be used to develop digital terrain models, contours, intensity images and other elevation representations. These are represented by utility contours which indicate increased levels of happiness as we move away from the origin to higher levels of consumption of both goods. 1.3 A line joining points on a diagram at which some property has the same value. 等高线；恒值线 the figure shows contours of 21-cm line emission of atomic hydrogen 此图形标明原子氢的21厘米发射谱线的等高线。 Example sentencesExamples It is noteworthy that this map closely matches the petrographic contours of the geological map. On a map without contours, two communities cut off from one another by an impassable mountain may appear as close neighbours. When I buy a house I get out the maps and study the contours, rejecting anything where there's the slightest chance of flooding. The contours show that the steepest gradients surround the Earth and Sun, with the five Earth Lagrange Points located in equilibrium regions with relatively gentle gradient. A built-in Mathematica algorithm was used to fit contours to a lattice of values calculated by numerical solution of Equation 11 and Equation 12. 2A way in which something varies, especially the pitch of music or the pattern of tones in an utterance. （音调或声调的）升降曲线；变化方式 Example sentencesExamples In Korn's unfortunate sentence, where the ambiguities are structural, a skilled speaker could easily signal the desired analysis by differences in timing, pitch contour and voice quality. The propulsive contours Liszt assigns to the left hand all but vanished, thus attenuating texture and the work itself of its internecine dramas. More impressive still is his quicksilver dexterity in following the ever-changing contours of Sibelius' form. He wrote with great sympathy and imagination for the voice, imitating the melodic contours and rhythms of speech in what he called ‘speech melody’. Mathews brilliantly traces the precise contours of her mood swings, their pace and imagery, their irrational, irresistible force. Menissier favors rounded contours and smooth musical lines; I tend to prefer sharper-edged and more angular interpretations. Well, one sure way to butcher Scarlatti keyboard music is to use the piano to smooth over Scarlatti's sharp contours. The contour of the song from order to disorder isn't exactly revolutionary, but the change is gradual enough not to be obvious on the first couple of listens. For instance, on the excellent piano-driven waltz ‘Irish Elk,’ he just seems to be singing without any sense of melodic contour, and he fails to deliver a convincing hook. Regardless of the words, it seems the melodic contour of the song describes the nature of the land over which the song passes. Kom can have as many as eight phonetic tones including contours, or combinations of tones. Dialogues varying only in their intonation contour (specifically in pitch accent or boundary tone) were presented in a random order to 47 speakers of Midwestern American English. On the contrary, many compositions strive for more elaborate contours, rhythms, and harmonic structures. Does the contour of their accented tongues create a particular Hispanic laugh pattern? To be more precise, his phrase-final pitch contours range from slightly falling, to level, to sharply rising. Each sentence we speak has a pitch contour associated with it that can be broken down into smaller sequences of elementary contours associated with linguistic phenomena. The teacher then modulated the intonational contour until it corresponded to the first syllables of the word paleontologist. There are plenty of interesting things to say about these pitch contours, but irony and sarcasm are not an essential part of the discussion. I've seen someone who taught a Yorkshire terrier to imitate slowly rising pitch contours, and have myself sung along with a mutt who seemed to imitate motifs from George Jones and Mozart. His orchestral forces are reduced, tempos are uniformly brisk, contours are sharpened, and his textures are ‘lean and mean’. verb ˈkɒntʊəˈkɑnˌtʊr [with object] 1Mould into a specific shape, especially one designed to fit into something else. 使与某轮廓吻合 the compartment has been contoured with smooth rounded corners 这个车厢隔间的棱角光滑圆溜。 Example sentencesExamples The high back of the chair was contoured specifically to his own back. The clip, which is contoured neatly into the pen, is also a new design. In addition, they have a contoured back-supported seat that positions the user behind the pedals and 34 seat adjustment options for customization regardless of user height, according to the company. The strong sense of stability is created by large-diameter wheels positioned near the extreme corners of the body and by boldly contoured shoulder lines that run from the headlamps to the rear of the body. Of its many versions, there's one with a deeply contoured seat that looks frightening but is the most comfortable thing I've ever sat on. Its even more powerful appearance is reflected in a new frontal design with short body overhangs and a highly contoured rear end. Incidentally, all the car's seats are contoured and similar to those shaped for motor sport, providing all-round support. The layers can be stacked like 1-millimeter-thick pages of a book, and even contoured into desired shapes prior to heating. The outer edge is being cut to contour and then rolled into shape. Each unit in the series has custom tubing shapes, contoured cushions and a lower profile, which combine to create a clean, contemporary look that is engaging to exercisers. Workers need something contoured to fit them and their office aches and pains. Offer quality leather that is highly contoured or very soft to conform to a woman's body. All of his handles are contoured and rounded for the ultimate in user comfort, which has become his calling card. Constructed of shatter-resistant plastic, the compass has an oversized, contoured knob and an adjustable nut to accommodate pens, pencils and thin markers. Intrinsically feminine but contoured to the way that most women look, they are made on soft fabric. The seats are cloth-covered, contoured, soft, with improved back support and fold-up armrests; and passengers in standard class have an extra two inches of legroom. To circumvent this, it will be helpful if the seats are designed with a contoured shape since it will reduce or eliminate pressure points. With a few simple steps, you can transform this classically contoured design into a comfortable gliding rocker that will last for years to come. Surgeons have advanced in technique to shape and contour the deeper facial tissues and resuspend them. Synonyms shaped, contoured, fitting tightly, fitting well 1.1 Shade (an area or areas of the face) with make-up, typically foundation or bronzer, in such a way as to accentuate or enhance the facial shape or structure. I prefer to only contour my cheeks no object it shouldn't look like you contour 2Mark (a map or diagram) with contour lines. 在（地图，图表）上标等高线 a variety of different data sources have been compiled to contour the maps Example sentencesExamples It is important to note that these maps were hand contoured, and contour software packages were not used due to accuracy and availability of data in some units. Data from the first and second PC and the geographical coordinates for each breed were combined and plotted as contoured geographic maps using a geostatistical griding method. These spheres are then used to compute a three-dimensional density map which, when contoured, defines the surface of the gap region. Detectives can then see the results on screen as a contoured two or three-dimensional map which can help them to work out where the offender may be based. A full colour photograph, contoured map and additional facts about the history, geology and wildlife of the area accompany each route. 3(of a road or railway) follow the outline of (a topographical feature), especially along a contour line. （公路，铁路）循地形轮廓（尤指循等高线）而行 the road contours the hillside 公路沿着山坡延伸。 Example sentencesExamples These roads contoured steep slopes above streams, and the aspect measured was that of the prevailing slope. The route continued contouring the south coast, the border regions, and the north coast on return to Dili. There were level parts contouring along the hillside where I sauntered past brilliant wildflowers or sharply aromatic herbs. Origin Mid 17th century: from French, from Italian contorno, from contornare 'draw in outline', from con- 'together'+ tornare 'to turn'. Contour comes via French, from Italian contorno: this is from contornare ‘draw in outline’, from con- ‘together’ and tornare ‘to turn’. Definition of contour in US English: contour nounˈkɑnˌtʊrˈkänˌto͝or usually contours 1An outline, especially one representing or bounding the shape or form of something. 轮廓；外形；周线，围线 she traced the contours of his face with her finger 她用手指描绘他的脸部轮廓。 figurative the contours of American life Example sentencesExamples But Rosa's life is also a very modern one, its broad contours shaped by global economic forces and its details modified by individual needs and personal enterprise. We want to shape the contours of the research setting, by presenting the latest developments and by mapping the terrain of future exploration. Events may have been shaped to fit the contours of a film script, but the emotional truth of the situations is vividly authentic. No independent existence for women outside of the patriarchal system that shaped the contours of their lives was possible. The rooms have shapes and contours that seem determined to disorientate, although the overall effect is striking and seductive. It's the shapes rather than the contours which attract us in Piero's painting. The painter believes that he is going beyond shapes, contours and colours. We take for granted the unique shapes and contours of ourselves, as easily as we forget, or perhaps don't consider, our ancestry. Intensity modulated radiotherapy is a developing new technology which can produce an even distribution of radiation dose within a target volume which follows the contours of an irregularly shaped tumour. A thick fluffy pillow was shaped to the contours of her head. I traced the contours of it for a moment, wondering how much longer their dewy, life-like coloring would last. There is an almost abstract flavour to his creations - speedy outlines and contours take shape on the canvas as he moves about in a blur. Open linear shapes are the contours of nurses' stations, curved forms the sine waves of various organ-function monitors. He traces the trajectory of the city's industrial growth and its rising immigrant population, describing how these processes in turn shaped the contours of class formation. Triangles provide stability and curved shapes soften the contours of objects. The images were precisely to scale, the contours actual traces of the plants themselves. As feminist theorists in the 1980s and 1990s proliferated differences in order to better represent the contours of twentieth-century life, science kept pace. Angles and curves, shapes and contours fascinate young minds. He was so perfectly shaped that all she wanted to do was trace the contours of his musculature and well formed face. Previous generations of humankind have revelled in the shape, the contours of the female form, but now, women seem to be being educated towards a near-parody of what nature originally intended. Synonyms outline, shape, form 1.1 An outline of a natural feature such as a hill or valley. （天然地形的）轮廓 cliffs with grassy rounded contours 长满青草的圆形悬崖。 Example sentencesExamples Before the invention of the fridge, the track, artfully cut into the contours of the hill, was used by muleteers to haul down snow to be stored in a deep pit, which can still be seen. Go through the gate and take the path which heads west and then northwest following the contours of a small hill. One of the things he most loves about that landscape is the way the stone walls that thread across the hills pick out the contours of the land. Lesson number two was how easy it is to be led away from your course by old tracks and the natural contours in the land. The greens, all of different shapes and contours, all have an excellent putting surface. 1.2 short for contour line Example sentencesExamples These are represented by utility contours which indicate increased levels of happiness as we move away from the origin to higher levels of consumption of both goods. Yet the map shows a broad swathe of relatively flat land skirting the foothills of the mountain at the 100ft / 33m contour, and extending up to Bundoran. The job might be considerably easier if the driver could don a pair of glasses that superimposes the contours of the map right on the ground. In many cases the scale is not given, and in the littorals the bottom depth contours are not identified. If combined with the airborne laser scanner, the data can be used to develop digital terrain models, contours, intensity images and other elevation representations. 1.3 A line joining points on a diagram at which some property has the same value. 等高线；恒值线 the map shows contours of every 10-foot difference in elevation Example sentencesExamples On a map without contours, two communities cut off from one another by an impassable mountain may appear as close neighbours. The contours show that the steepest gradients surround the Earth and Sun, with the five Earth Lagrange Points located in equilibrium regions with relatively gentle gradient. It is noteworthy that this map closely matches the petrographic contours of the geological map. A built-in Mathematica algorithm was used to fit contours to a lattice of values calculated by numerical solution of Equation 11 and Equation 12. When I buy a house I get out the maps and study the contours, rejecting anything where there's the slightest chance of flooding. 1.4 A way in which something varies, especially the pitch of music or the pattern of tones in an utterance. （音调或声调的）升降曲线；变化方式 the movement tends to place more emphasis on rhythm than melodic contour Example sentencesExamples He wrote with great sympathy and imagination for the voice, imitating the melodic contours and rhythms of speech in what he called ‘speech melody’. Regardless of the words, it seems the melodic contour of the song describes the nature of the land over which the song passes. The propulsive contours Liszt assigns to the left hand all but vanished, thus attenuating texture and the work itself of its internecine dramas. In Korn's unfortunate sentence, where the ambiguities are structural, a skilled speaker could easily signal the desired analysis by differences in timing, pitch contour and voice quality. Well, one sure way to butcher Scarlatti keyboard music is to use the piano to smooth over Scarlatti's sharp contours. There are plenty of interesting things to say about these pitch contours, but irony and sarcasm are not an essential part of the discussion. The contour of the song from order to disorder isn't exactly revolutionary, but the change is gradual enough not to be obvious on the first couple of listens. Each sentence we speak has a pitch contour associated with it that can be broken down into smaller sequences of elementary contours associated with linguistic phenomena. Menissier favors rounded contours and smooth musical lines; I tend to prefer sharper-edged and more angular interpretations. Mathews brilliantly traces the precise contours of her mood swings, their pace and imagery, their irrational, irresistible force. Dialogues varying only in their intonation contour (specifically in pitch accent or boundary tone) were presented in a random order to 47 speakers of Midwestern American English. To be more precise, his phrase-final pitch contours range from slightly falling, to level, to sharply rising. Kom can have as many as eight phonetic tones including contours, or combinations of tones. Does the contour of their accented tongues create a particular Hispanic laugh pattern? More impressive still is his quicksilver dexterity in following the ever-changing contours of Sibelius' form. His orchestral forces are reduced, tempos are uniformly brisk, contours are sharpened, and his textures are ‘lean and mean’. For instance, on the excellent piano-driven waltz ‘Irish Elk,’ he just seems to be singing without any sense of melodic contour, and he fails to deliver a convincing hook. The teacher then modulated the intonational contour until it corresponded to the first syllables of the word paleontologist. I've seen someone who taught a Yorkshire terrier to imitate slowly rising pitch contours, and have myself sung along with a mutt who seemed to imitate motifs from George Jones and Mozart. On the contrary, many compositions strive for more elaborate contours, rhythms, and harmonic structures. verbˈkɑnˌtʊrˈkänˌto͝or [with object] 1usually be contouredMold into a specific shape, especially one designed to fit into something else. 使与某轮廓吻合 the compartment has been contoured with smooth rounded corners 这个车厢隔间的棱角光滑圆溜。 Example sentencesExamples Offer quality leather that is highly contoured or very soft to conform to a woman's body. The seats are cloth-covered, contoured, soft, with improved back support and fold-up armrests; and passengers in standard class have an extra two inches of legroom. Surgeons have advanced in technique to shape and contour the deeper facial tissues and resuspend them. Workers need something contoured to fit them and their office aches and pains. In addition, they have a contoured back-supported seat that positions the user behind the pedals and 34 seat adjustment options for customization regardless of user height, according to the company. With a few simple steps, you can transform this classically contoured design into a comfortable gliding rocker that will last for years to come. The clip, which is contoured neatly into the pen, is also a new design. The strong sense of stability is created by large-diameter wheels positioned near the extreme corners of the body and by boldly contoured shoulder lines that run from the headlamps to the rear of the body. All of his handles are contoured and rounded for the ultimate in user comfort, which has become his calling card. Incidentally, all the car's seats are contoured and similar to those shaped for motor sport, providing all-round support. The high back of the chair was contoured specifically to his own back. Each unit in the series has custom tubing shapes, contoured cushions and a lower profile, which combine to create a clean, contemporary look that is engaging to exercisers. The outer edge is being cut to contour and then rolled into shape. To circumvent this, it will be helpful if the seats are designed with a contoured shape since it will reduce or eliminate pressure points. Intrinsically feminine but contoured to the way that most women look, they are made on soft fabric. Its even more powerful appearance is reflected in a new frontal design with short body overhangs and a highly contoured rear end. The layers can be stacked like 1-millimeter-thick pages of a book, and even contoured into desired shapes prior to heating. Constructed of shatter-resistant plastic, the compass has an oversized, contoured knob and an adjustable nut to accommodate pens, pencils and thin markers. Of its many versions, there's one with a deeply contoured seat that looks frightening but is the most comfortable thing I've ever sat on. Synonyms shaped, contoured, fitting tightly, fitting well 1.1 Shade (an area or areas of the face) with makeup, typically foundation or bronzer, in such a way as to accentuate or enhance the facial shape or structure. I prefer to only contour my cheeks no object it shouldn't look like you contour 2Mark (a map or diagram) with contour lines. 在（地图，图表）上标等高线 a variety of different data sources have been compiled to contour the maps Example sentencesExamples Data from the first and second PC and the geographical coordinates for each breed were combined and plotted as contoured geographic maps using a geostatistical griding method. A full colour photograph, contoured map and additional facts about the history, geology and wildlife of the area accompany each route. Detectives can then see the results on screen as a contoured two or three-dimensional map which can help them to work out where the offender may be based. It is important to note that these maps were hand contoured, and contour software packages were not used due to accuracy and availability of data in some units. These spheres are then used to compute a three-dimensional density map which, when contoured, defines the surface of the gap region. 3(of a road or railroad) follow the outline of (a topographical feature), especially along a contour line. （公路，铁路）循地形轮廓（尤指循等高线）而行 the road contours the hillside 公路沿着山坡延伸。 Example sentencesExamples The route continued contouring the south coast, the border regions, and the north coast on return to Dili. These roads contoured steep slopes above streams, and the aspect measured was that of the prevailing slope. There were level parts contouring along the hillside where I sauntered past brilliant wildflowers or sharply aromatic herbs. Origin Mid 17th century: from French, from Italian contorno, from contornare ‘draw in outline’, from con- ‘together’ + tornare ‘to turn’.
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