picture [LME] The word picture goes back to a form of Latin pingere ‘to paint’, from which *paint and pigment [OE] also derive. Doan’s Backache Kidney Pills, claiming to cure everything from rheumatism to diabetes, were promoted with the advertising slogan every picture tells a story. The first known advertisement using it appeared in the Daily Mail of 26 February 1904. The novelist Charlotte Brontë had anticipated the advertising copy, though: in 1847 she wrote in Jane Eyre, ‘The letter-press … I cared little for … Each picture told a story.’ The Washington Post in 1925 has ‘“The picture is worth ten thousand words.” So says an old Chinese proverb.’ There is no evidence at all that it is Chinese, but a picture is worth a thousand words has certainly gone on to be a modern English proverb. Depict [LME] is from the verb depingere ‘portray’, from de- ‘completely’ and pingere, while pixel [M20th] is formed from pix [E20th], the shortening of pictures and the first syllable of element.