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Draw

Look up draw in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. Draw is a word with multiple meanings. It may refer to: For detailed information on these and other uses, see the relevant sections below.

Arts and entertainment

Visual arts

is a fundamental visual art form that involves using instruments such as pencils, pens, or digital styluses to create marks on two-dimensional surfaces like or screens, resulting in images that convey ideas, emotions, or observations. This practice emphasizes the deliberate application of lines, tones, and shapes to represent subjects ranging from abstract forms to realistic depictions, distinguishing it from other like through its typically linear and monochromatic focus. In artistic contexts, serves as both an independent medium and a preparatory step for larger works, allowing artists to explore and form with immediacy and precision. For detailed history, techniques, and cultural significance, see the article introduction.

Music

In music, "draw" appears in song titles, album names, and performance techniques, often evoking themes of tension, introspection, or fluid motion. Notable examples include tracks that metaphorically explore pulling toward or away from emotional states, as well as instrumental methods involving deliberate pulling actions for expressive effect. One prominent song is "The Draw" by the British band , released in 2013 as part of their expanded album All This Bad Blood. The track delves into the internal conflict between familiarity and the unknown, with lyrics contrasting elements held in each hand and a sense of inevitable pull. It was accompanied by a black-and-white directed by Tom Middleton and Jack Scott, featuring urban imagery to underscore its thematic tension. In , "" serves as both a track title and an artist alias, appearing in various releases that emphasize rapid delivery and street-sharp narratives. For instance, rapper Sir Quick Draw released the 1987 album Rapaholic on Baywave , showcasing old-school flows with quick, punchy rhymes. More recent examples include Bam Bino's 2025 single "," produced with Leslie Walls, which highlights aggressive, fast-paced rap over beats. Additionally, Baton Rouge artist Quikkdraw (stylized as @quikkdraw_730) incorporates the in freestyles, blending themes with swift lyrical execution. Musical techniques involving "draw" are rooted in string instrument performance, particularly the on and similar bowed strings. This fundamental action entails pulling the bow across the strings with controlled pressure and speed to produce , as described in basic string pedagogy where the bow is drawn to the for optimal . ist Aaron emphasized drawing the bow with fingers working closely together and the palm facing outward on down-bows, turning slightly for up-bows to achieve a beautiful, even . In folk singing traditions, "drawing breath" refers to a phrasing where performers inhale deeply and quietly between lines to maintain natural flow, akin to principles adapted in and folk styles for expressive delivery. This method, evident in historical collections like Thomas Moore's Irish Melodies (1808–1834), allows singers to sustain long phrases without strain, mirroring the breath's pull in . Events centered on "draw" include performances by Draw the Line, the Aerosmith-endorsed tribute band formed in 1991, which has headlined rock shows and festivals through 2025. The band, featuring guitarist Gino Caira as Joe Perry, toured extensively in 2024–2025, including a June 27, 2025, appearance at The Music Room in and an August 23, 2025, concert at in , recreating Aerosmith's high-energy rock with precise tributes to tracks like "Draw the Line." On guitar and percussion, quick-draw techniques involve rapid slapping or tapping for rhythmic percussion effects, enhancing fingerstyle and acoustic performances. In percussive acoustic guitar, players slap the low strings with the thumb while tapping higher ones behind the bridge with fingers to mimic drum patterns, creating layered grooves without additional instruments. This approach, popularized in flamenco and modern fingerstyle, allows for swift "draws" of sound through palm muting and string slaps, adding percussive punch to melodies.

Film and literature

In Western films and television series, the concept of a "quick draw" frequently serves as a narrative device to heighten tension and symbolize abrupt confrontations with fate. The long-running TV series Gunsmoke (1955–1975) prominently features draw-out showdowns in episodes such as "The Jailer" (1958), where Marshal Matt Dillon engages in high-stakes gun duels against outlaws, underscoring themes of justice and moral resolve. Similarly, Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) builds suspense through its climactic quick-draw duel between Harmonica and Frank, a scene renowned for its prolonged buildup and exploration of revenge as an inexorable pull. Short films have also employed "draw" motifs to delve into personal and artistic struggles. In Luck of the Draw (2023), directed by Harrison Cable and RJ Zabasky, a young man resorts to rigging a to cover his ailing mother's medical bills, illustrating the desperate act of pulling resources from chance amid familial hardship. This production contrasts the allure of fate's with ethical boundaries, echoing broader cinematic explorations of and . In literature, "draw" often manifests metaphorically as establishing limits or extracting inspiration. Laurent Linn's young adult novel Draw the Line (2017) follows , a artist in rural , who uses sketching to process a and assert , blending literal drawing techniques with themes of self-empowerment and societal lines. Robert Frost's poem (1914) employs the of "drawing a line" through a recurring between neighbors, critiquing arbitrary divisions while questioning the human impulse to pull apart or connect. Theater pieces have long used "draw" in lottery contexts to probe fate and social dynamics. Henry Fielding's The Lottery (1732) satirizes 18th-century England's obsession with lotteries, depicting characters' frantic pulls at tickets that expose greed and folly, culminating in chaotic draws that mirror societal disarray. William Shakespeare's (c. 1596–1599) incorporates a motif in Portia's suitor selection, where caskets serve as fateful draws, pulling themes of , , and marital destiny to the forefront. Recent works continue to weave "draw" into suspenseful or inspirational narratives. The horror comic anthology Drawing Blood (Kickstarter-funded, October 2024), created by Hale and others, features stories involving blood and apocalyptic isolation. Across these media, "draw" evokes the slow extraction of in duels or lotteries, while artists and protagonists often draw creative sustenance from their environments, transforming adversity into momentum.

Computing and technology

Graphics software

Apache OpenOffice Draw is a included in the suite, initially released as part of 1.0 in 2002. It supports features such as multiple layers for organizing complex drawings and smart connectors that automatically adjust when linked objects are moved, making it suitable for creating diagrams, flowcharts, and technical illustrations. LibreOffice Draw, a fork of OpenOffice.org launched in 2010, builds on this foundation with improved export capabilities, including advanced PDF options for embedding fonts, compression, and accessibility features like tagged structures for screen readers. It retains core vector editing tools while adding enhancements for interoperability with formats such as and enhanced PDF export for professional printing. Google's Quick, Draw! is an AI-driven web experiment launched in 2016 that challenges users to doodle objects while a neural network attempts real-time recognition. The project has amassed a dataset of over 50 million drawings across 345 categories, publicly available to advance machine learning research in sketch interpretation and pattern recognition. Other notable tools include Canva Draw, an online sketching feature introduced in the 2020s that enables real-time collaboration with freehand drawing tools, brushes, and shape recognition on an infinite canvas, integrated into Canva's design platform for team-based ideation. Historically, MacDraw, released in 1984 as the first vector drawing application for the Macintosh, pioneered object-based editing with scalable shapes and text integration, influencing subsequent graphics software development. In , vector drawing represents images using mathematical paths defined by points, lines, and curves, allowing infinite without quality loss, whereas raster drawing composes images from a of pixels, which can pixelate when enlarged but excels in photorealistic detail. Algorithms like are fundamental to vector tools for smooth curve generation; a cubic Bézier curve interpolates between control points P_0, P_1, P_2, P_3 via the : \mathbf{B}(t) = (1 - t)^3 \mathbf{P_0} + 3(1 - t)^2 t \mathbf{P_1} + 3(1 - t) t^2 \mathbf{P_2} + t^3 \mathbf{P_3}, \quad t \in [0,1] This formulation enables precise path simplification and rendering in editors like Draw applications. By 2025, AI integrations have advanced drawing tools, such as xAI's Grok image generator, which creates high-quality visuals from text prompts using advanced neural models. Emerging VR drawing applications post-2023, including AirDraw for spatial canvases on devices like Apple Vision Pro, enable immersive 3D sketching with gesture-based controls and real-time collaboration.

Other technical applications

In (CAD) systems, the term "draw" refers to precise commands used for technical drafting and modeling. , first released in December 1982 by , revolutionized engineering workflows by introducing commands such as LINE for creating straight segments and for generating circular geometries based on center points and radii, enabling accurate 2D technical drawings. In 3D modeling within CAD environments like , draw commands extend to solid primitives and surfaces, such as EXTRUDE for pulling profiles into 3D volumes and REVOLVE for rotating sketches around axes, facilitating complex engineering designs with dimensional precision. Manufacturing simulations employ "" processes to model material deformation, particularly in , where software simulates pulling metal rods through dies to reduce diameter and achieve uniform wires. Tools like FEA RF and DEFORM analyze these operations by computing forces, strains, and die wear, optimizing parameters for industries such as automotive and wiring production. A key metric in these simulations is , calculated as \sigma = \frac{F}{A}, where \sigma is the , F is the applied , and A is the cross-sectional area, providing insight into material limits and process efficiency without physical trials. In programming contexts, "draw" functions underpin procedural generation in graphics libraries. Processing.js, a JavaScript implementation of the Processing language, uses the draw() loop to continuously render frames for animations, executing code repeatedly at 60 frames per second to update shapes, colors, and positions in real-time visualizations. Historically, the Logo programming language, developed in 1967 by Wally Feurzeig, Seymour Papert, and Cynthia Solomon, introduced turtle graphics where commands like FORWARD and TURN instruct a virtual turtle to "draw" paths on a screen, laying foundational concepts for educational computing and vector-based rendering. Medical technology incorporates "draw" protocols in software for venipuncture management, tracking blood extraction procedures to ensure compliance and safety. Platforms like PHLEBIO and TrackoBit provide mobile apps that log patient details, draw sites, timestamps, and equipment used during blood collection, integrating with electronic health records to streamline lab workflows and reduce errors in clinical settings. As of 2025, AI-driven applications have explored "draw" simulations for probabilistic predictions in systems, where neural networks analyze historical to identify potential patterns, though lotteries are fundamentally random and no method can reliably predict outcomes. In , "draw" denotes random sampling from quantum circuits, where devices generate verifiable distributions impossible for classical systems; for instance, trapped-ion processors demonstrate quantum advantage by sampling from complex probability spaces, advancing certified randomness for and simulations.

Sports and games

Competition outcomes

In sports competitions, a draw refers to a or concluding with equal scores, resulting in no outright winner. This outcome is particularly prevalent in team sports like soccer, where the rules of governing bodies such as permit draws during group stages of tournaments, awarding one point to each team to reflect the tied result. The concept of a as a tied outcome originated in 19th-century sports, coinciding with the codification of modern rules for games like in 1863, which allowed matches to end without a decisive victor unless specified otherwise. A notable historical example is the between and , which remained level at 2-2 after 90 minutes of regulation time, necessitating extra time to determine the winner. Draws exhibit variations across sports and contexts, including temporary ties at that may resolve later, or full-match stalemates in play. In tournaments, initial draws are often resolved through mechanisms like penalty shootouts in soccer, where teams alternate kicks from 12 yards after extra time, though the underlying match result remains recorded as a draw. For instance, draws highlight their frequency and impact on standings. Beyond direct match outcomes, the term "draw" also applies to non-sporting competitive bracketing in tournaments, such as the randomized or seeded assignment of opponents to ensure balanced fixtures. At Wimbledon, seeding—placing top players in separate sections of the draw to avoid early clashes—was introduced in 1924 and has since evolved to include 32 seeds based on rankings and surface performance, promoting fairness in the tournament structure. The cultural roots of draws trace back to ancient practices like drawing lots in Greek competitions, a method used from the Archaic period onward to allocate roles or prizes equitably among participants, embodying egalitarian ideals and preventing bias or corruption in events such as the Olympic Games.

Specific game mechanics

In card games, draw poker emerged in the mid-19th century, with the first recorded mentions around 1850, allowing players to discard and replace cards to improve their hands. The five-card draw variant, a foundational form, begins with an ante contributed by each player to the pot, followed by the dealer distributing five face-down cards to each participant. After an initial betting round starting with the player to the dealer's left, players enter the draw phase, where they may discard up to five cards and receive replacements from the deck, aiming to form the strongest poker hand before a final betting round and showdown. Board games incorporate "draw" mechanics in structured ways to resolve actions or outcomes. In chess, a occurs via when the player to move has no legal moves but their is not in , immediately ending the game as a tie. Another path to draw is , where a player claims the game as drawn if the same position, with identical pieces, rights, and , arises three times during the game, regardless of whether the repetitions are consecutive. These rules were refined in FIDE's 2014 laws update to clarify claims in and formats, preventing automatic draws without player or arbiter intervention in non-standard games. In Monopoly, players cards from the deck upon landing on designated spaces, following instructions that may involve payments, movements, or property repairs to advance gameplay. Sports feature "draw" as a precise physical or tactical element. In archery with recurve bows, the full length—the distance from the bowstring's rest position to the archer's pivot point at full extension—is standardized at approximately 28 inches for performance measurements and equipment rating, accommodating most adult archers while allowing adjustments for individual anthropometrics. In , the is a running where the drops back as if to , prompting the offensive line to execute pass-blocking sets that lure defensive linemen forward and create gaps for the to advance through the vacated area. Additional game contexts extend draw mechanics to procedural starts and chance-based selections. In , draws initiate play from center ice at the start of periods or after goals, with the dropping the between the opposing centers' sticks after ensuring players are positioned correctly, such as the visiting team's stick touching the ice first. draws, like since its 1992 launch, rely on mechanical via physical ball machines selecting five white balls from 1-69 and one red Powerball from 1-26, ensuring unbiased outcomes through audited, gravity-mixed tumblers. In 2025 esports for MOBAs such as , tiebreakers for tied standings in tournaments like the LEC Spring Split involve additional matches or head-to-head criteria to resolve playoff seeding, as seen in clashes determining final spots.

General and other uses

Extraction and pulling actions

In everyday contexts, "draw" refers to the physical act of extracting or pulling resources, such as drawing from a well using historical hand-operated pumps invented in during the 1400s, which relied on manual leverage to lift water from underground sources. Similarly, to draw a bath means to fill a with to a suitable level for , a phrase originating from eras when required deliberate effort rather than modern . In medical practice, through involves applying a to the upper arm to engorge the , selecting a site like the , and inserting a 21- to 23-gauge needle at a 15- to 30-degree angle to the skin surface to minimize vessel damage and ensure smooth entry. Standard evacuated collection tubes, or vacutainers, typically hold 5 to 10 of , allowing for multiple tests from a single draw while adhering to protocols that limit total volume to avoid patient discomfort. In weaponry, a denotes the rapid extraction and firing of a from a holster, a popularized in traditions using low-slung holsters positioned for speed, with expert performers achieving times around 0.2 seconds from draw to shot through rigorous training focused on and minimal motion. For swords, in emphasizes the precise, fluid drawing of the from its in a single motion, often combining extraction with an immediate defensive or offensive cut to counter sudden threats, as practiced in traditions dating back centuries. Metaphorically, to draw a crowd means to attract a large group of through or novelty, as in events or performances that pull spectators via inherent or excitement. In theater, drawing curtains involves parting or closing panels, achieved via manual pull systems with ropes and pulleys for smaller venues or motorized tracks that use electric motors and remote controls for precise, automated operation in larger auditoriums. Historically, lottery draws trace to ancient Roman sortition, where officials like magistrates were selected by lot from eligible candidates using urns or sacks to ensure impartiality and reflect democratic ideals, as seen in practices from the Republic era. In modern contexts, crypto "draws" for NFTs have emerged as a trend in 2024-2025, involving blockchain-based lotteries where participants stake tokens or NFTs for randomized wins, often integrated with smart contracts for transparency and gaining traction in gaming and collectibles markets projected to reach $1.8 billion in tools by 2031.

Terrain and geography

In geography, a is defined as a linear or shallow in the , typically formed between two parallel ridges or spurs, where the ground slopes downward in one direction and is often dry except during rainfall. This feature is particularly common in arid and semi-arid regions of the American Southwest, where it serves as a for an arroyo—a steep-sided that channels intermittent water flow. Draws are distinguished by their gentle gradients and integration into hilly landscapes, contrasting with deeper incisions like ravines, which are narrower and more V-shaped due to concentrated stream , or coulees, which are broader, steep-walled troughs often associated with glacial or volcanic origins in the . Draws form primarily through episodic water , where infrequent but intense rainfall scours the landscape, carving channels into softer sedimentary rocks like . In the , for instance, southeast-flowing streams have driven over millions of years, stripping away overlying sediments and exposing resistant limestones while creating networks of draws that collect during storms. This process is exacerbated in terrains, where and combine to deepen these features gradually. These landforms play key roles in human and ecological activities. In hiking and military tactics, draws provide natural cover and concealment, allowing movement along low-lying paths shielded from observation while offering tactical advantages in terrain analysis frameworks like OCOKA (Observation, Cover, Obstacles, Key terrain, Avenues of approach). Ecologically, draws function as wildlife corridors, facilitating animal migration and trails—such as those used by mule deer and pronghorn—between habitats by connecting fragmented landscapes and providing shaded, moist refuges in otherwise open arid environments. In geographic information systems (GIS), draws are mapped as linear depression features using tools that identify topographic lows and slope gradients from digital elevation models, aiding in land-use planning and hazard assessment. In the context of climate change, draws in arid regions like the Southwest are increasingly susceptible to flash flooding due to more intense precipitation events, as documented in USGS analyses of 2020s hydrological trends, which show accelerated runoff in these channels from heightened storm variability and reduced soil infiltration. Such changes amplify erosion rates and flood risks.