detail
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Comparison between the whole and a detail based on the right inner wing of the triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights ("The Musical Hell") by Hieronymus Bosch :
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The detail (from the French détailler = divide or divide , or break down into individual parts; verb : "detail") denotes a particular or a more precise, often pictorially enlarged section of a larger whole. The term “detail” is usually associated with accuracy .
The detail can be a small part of a work of art , for example to depict the artist's style more precisely or to identify forgeries . It can also be a more or less small excerpt from a larger text , be it from a body of law , a party program , a treaty , a novel or something else.
Often the sense and purpose of a text, picture or other object of observation - or discussion - is better, and above all more precisely, through the "look" at certain details.
The breaking down of a thing into details serves primarily for purposes of analysis . The assembly of details into a whole often aims at a synthesis .
Where, on superficial examination, the viewers may still be relatively unanimous in their assessment , opinions can sometimes differ widely when looking at the details.
The term detail appears in various words, combinations of words and word combinations, all of which relate to dealing with more precise details. These can be neutral as well as positive or negative. Some examples:
- detailed (= detailed with an enrichment of many details)
- detailed (= exact, detailed, also detailed)
- accurate to the last detail, true to detail (e.g. = resembling an original except for the details, e.g. a copy or a forgery that cannot or can hardly be distinguished from the original)
- in love with detail (= meticulous, orientated towards details, considering the details as the essentials)
- Detailed question (= a question that concerns a particular, sometimes also an insignificant question)
- Detailed knowledge (= accurate and detailed knowledge of an object of observation or discussion)
- Detail drawing (= exact, often enlarged drawing of a section from a larger whole, for example from a mechanical workpiece )
- go into detail (= leave the superficial consideration and go into more or more detailed information)
- get lost in details (= lose sight of the essentials; literally, for example: "No longer see the forest for the trees")
- Tear apart down to the smallest detail (can also mean: talk a thing to death, take it apart so that nothing - or not much positive - remains of the originally intended whole)
Further implications
In an antiquated German, in the German-speaking Switzerland today customary usage has been / will retail as a retail business, the retailers as retailers and the price for goods at retail than retail price indicated.
