broad strokes
Big picture summary
Broad strokes are the general outline or main features of something, without fine details: Let me give you the broad strokes of the plan.
The image comes from painting—a wide brush covers large areas quickly but can't render precision.
In broad strokes, the story follows a familiar pattern.
The phrase often signals that specifics will follow or are being deliberately omitted.
- overviewBroad general summary
- bird's eye viewElevated vantage point
- sketchHasty informal drawing
- quick sketchBrief informal drawing
- big pictureOverall perspective on things
blueprint · draft · impression · ballpark figure · general · imprecise · outline · rough outline · abstraction · tentative · rough draft · first pass · gist · brushwork · composition · simplification · approximate · vague
- Imprecisevague, fuzzy, rough, hazy, murky
- detail levelsdetailed, general, specific, narrow, high-level
- pencil qualitiessharpness, hardness, softness, smoothness, darkness
- measurement idiomsinch by inch, give an inch, whole nine yards, by a mile, go the extra mile
- sayingssayings, saying, proverb, proverbs, adage
- simplificationsimplification, simplifying, simplify, condensing, simplified
broad strokesspecifics
Exact details of something
particulars · fine print · nitty-gritty · minutiae · blow-by-blow
broad strokesclose-up
Near-range photograph
zoom in · deep dive · case-by-case · line-by-line · word-by-word
broad strokesprecision
Accuracy of measurement
exactitude · exactness · specificity · pinpoint accuracy · surgical precision
broad, strokes, broadly, broaden, broadened, broadening, broadens, broader, broadest