Meaning & use
shade in
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Meanings
verbphrasal verb
to fill an area of a drawing or form with pencil, ink or color, usually to make it darker or solid.
Grammar: Takes an object and can be split: shade in the box, shade the box in, shade it in.
Patterns
- shade something in
- shade in something
Please shade in the correct answer bubble with a pencil.
She shaded the mountains in to give the picture depth.
Children enjoy shading in the shapes on the worksheet.
verbphrasal verb
to add darker areas to a drawing to show depth, shadow or form.
Grammar: Often used with a body part or object in art: shade in the face.
Patterns
- shade something in
- shade in something
He shaded in the shadow under the tree with soft strokes.
Once the outline is done, shade in the darker side of the vase.
The teacher showed us how to shade in a cheek to look rounded.
Word forms
| third person singular | shades in |
|---|---|
| past tense | shaded in |
| past participle | shaded in |
| -ing form | shading in |
Common combinations
- shade in a box
- Shade in the box next to your choice.
- shade in the outline
- He shaded in the outline with a dark pencil.
- shade in lightly
- Shade in lightly at first, then press harder.
- shade in the answer
- Candidates must shade in the answer carefully.
- shade in the background
- She shaded in the background with gray.
Synonyms and how they differ
- fill in
- Fill in covers any filling of a space, including writing words, while shade in is about covering an area with pencil or color.
- color in
- Color in suggests using crayons or paints for a picture, whereas shade in often means pencil and may mean only darkening.
- darken
- Darken only describes the result, while shade in names the action of working over an area.
- blacken
- Blacken means making something fully black, but shade in can be any tone or color.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: shade in or fill out?
shade in vs fill out
In British English fill in a form, and in American English fill out a form; shade in is only for coloring or darkening areas.
Practice
On the test, you must ___ the circle next to the right answer with a pencil.
Choose one answer.
Shade in means to fill an area with pencil. The other particles do not form a standard phrasal verb with this meaning.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “shade in”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.