Definition of "foreshortening" [fore•short•en•ing]

• A technique for creating the appearance that the object of a drawing is extending into space by shortening the lines with which that object is drawn. (noun)
• Present participle of foreshorten. (verb)

Wiktionary.org : Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License

• "This becomes complicated and more difficult to arrange when we admit into our design anything resembling what painters call foreshortening, and the awkwardness is felt even in the placing of such a small thing as an apple-leaf, which may be treated in such a way that the intention of the drawing is entirely lost in the confusion which arises between the inferred and the actual projection."
• "In proportion to the amount of actual projection from the background, of course the necessity diminishes for that kind of foreshortening which is obtained by delineation."
• "In a word, they discovered the laws of chiaroscuro, and with them the art of foreshortening, which is, in fact, perspective applied to the human figure."