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Lay figure   /leɪ fˈɪgjər/   Listen
noun
Figure  n.  
1.
The form of anything; shape; outline; appearance. "Flowers have all exquisite figures."
2.
The representation of any form, as by drawing, painting, modeling, carving, embroidering, etc.; especially, a representation of the human body; as, a figure in bronze; a figure cut in marble. "A coin that bears the figure of an angel."
3.
A pattern in cloth, paper, or other manufactured article; a design wrought out in a fabric; as, the muslin was of a pretty figure.
4.
(Geom.) A diagram or drawing, made to represent a magnitude or the relation of two or more magnitudes; a surface or space inclosed on all sides; called superficial when inclosed by lines, and solid when inclosed by surfaces; any arrangement made up of points, lines, angles, surfaces, etc.
5.
The appearance or impression made by the conduct or career of a person; as, a sorry figure. "I made some figure there." "Gentlemen of the best figure in the county."
6.
Distinguished appearance; magnificence; conspicuous representation; splendor; show. "That he may live in figure and indulgence."
7.
A character or symbol representing a number; a numeral; a digit; as, 1, 2,3, etc.
8.
Value, as expressed in numbers; price; as, the goods are estimated or sold at a low figure. (Colloq.) "With nineteen thousand a year at the very lowest figure."
9.
A person, thing, or action, conceived of as analogous to another person, thing, or action, of which it thus becomes a type or representative. "Who is the figure of Him that was to come."
10.
(Rhet.) A mode of expressing abstract or immaterial ideas by words which suggest pictures or images from the physical world; pictorial language; a trope; hence, any deviation from the plainest form of statement. Also called a figure of speech. "To represent the imagination under the figure of a wing."
11.
(Logic) The form of a syllogism with respect to the relative position of the middle term.
12.
(Dancing) Any one of the several regular steps or movements made by a dancer.
13.
(Astrol.) A horoscope; the diagram of the aspects of the astrological houses.
14.
(Music)
(a)
Any short succession of notes, either as melody or as a group of chords, which produce a single complete and distinct impression.
(b)
A form of melody or accompaniment kept up through a strain or passage; a musical phrase or motive; a florid embellishment. Note: Figures are often written upon the staff in music to denote the kind of measure. They are usually in the form of a fraction, the upper figure showing how many notes of the kind indicated by the lower are contained in one measure or bar. Thus, 2/4 signifies that the measure contains two quarter notes. The following are the principal figures used for this purpose: 2/22/42/8 4/22/44/8 3/23/43/8 6/46/46/8
Academy figure, Canceled figures, Lay figure, etc. See under Academy, Cancel, Lay, etc.
Figure caster, or Figure flinger, an astrologer. "This figure caster."
Figure flinging, the practice of astrology.
Figure painting, a picture of the human figure, or the act or art of depicting the human figure.
Figure stone (Min.), agalmatolite.
Figure weaving, the art or process of weaving figured fabrics.
To cut a figure, to make a display. (Colloq.)


Lay  n.  
1.
That which lies or is laid or is conceived of as having been laid or placed in its position; a row; a stratum; a layer; as, a lay of stone or wood. "A viol should have a lay of wire strings below." Note: The lay of a rope is right-handed or left-handed according to the hemp or strands are laid up. See Lay, v. t., 16. The lay of land is its topographical situation, esp. its slope and its surface features.
2.
A wager. "My fortunes against any lay worth naming."
3.
(a)
A job, price, or profit. (Prov. Eng.)
(b)
A share of the proceeds or profits of an enterprise; as, when a man ships for a whaling voyage, he agrees for a certain lay. (U. S.)
4.
(Textile Manuf.)
(a)
A measure of yarn; a lea. See 1st Lea (a).
(b)
The lathe of a loom. See Lathe, 3.
5.
A plan; a scheme. (Slang)
Lay figure.
(a)
A jointed model of the human body that may be put in any attitude; used for showing the disposition of drapery, etc.
(b)
A mere puppet; one who serves the will of others without independent volition.
Lay race, that part of a lay on which the shuttle travels in weaving; called also shuttle race.
the lay of the land, the general situation or state of affairs.
to get the lay of the land, to learn the general situation or state of affairs, especially in preparation for action.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Lay figure" Quotes from Famous Books



... their appearance, and there were plums in the orchard. Then they made use of all the devices which had been recommended to them against the birds. But the bits of glass made dazzling reflections, the clapper of the wind-mill woke them during the night, and the sparrows perched on the lay figure. They made a second, and even a third, varying the dress, but without ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... the same: so much so that in one play there may be two or three Alfieris, good and bad, Alfieris turned perfectly virtuous or perfectly vicious; but anything that is not an Alfieri in some tolerably transparent disguise, is sure to be a puppet, a lay figure with as few joints as possible, just able to stretch out its arms and clap them to its sides, but dangling suspended ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... are. I showed you my sketch, indicated in a general way what I wanted, and instinctively and intelligently you assumed the proper attitude. I didn't have to take you by the chin and twist your head as though you were a lay figure; I didn't have to pull you about and flex and bend and twist you. You knew that I wanted you to look like some sort of an ethereal immortality, deliciously relaxed, adrift in sunset clouds. And you were it—somehow ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... and a lot of other things into his blanket, which he rolled up so as to represent a sort of lay figure, stowing this into his hammock at turning-in time, just before the 'out ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... race," exclaims the eulogist, "has never contemplated a nobler or more inspiring womanhood than that which glows on every page of Tennyson." This is the hectic exaggeration in which Mr. Hughes habitually indulges. Tennyson never drew a live woman. Maud is a lay figure, and the heroine of "The Princess" is purely fantastic. George Meredith beats the late Laureate hollow in this respect. He is second only to Shakespeare, who here, as elsewhere, maintains ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... Vitus's dance. Gloomily we enter the hall and silently accept the seats which are indicated to us by an unfortunate gentleman with a club-foot. In front of us an elderly female with short hair is chatting to a very plain young woman draped like a lay figure. On the right an emaciated man with a very bad cough shuffles on his chair; on the left two old grey-beards grumble to one another about the weather, a subject which leads up to the familiar "Mine catches me in ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... man and full of failings, but a man always, and therefore to be forgiven by the reader only a little less readily than Esther herself forgives him. Mr. Hardy's "Alec D'Urberville" is a grotesque and violent lay figure, a wholly incredible cad. Mr. Hardy, by killing Tess's child, takes away the one means by which his heroine could have been led to return to D'Urberville without any loss of the reader's sympathy. Mr. Moore allows Esther's child to live, and thus ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... this fatal mistake is manifest throughout New England,—in New England where the girls are all beautiful and the wives and mothers faded, disfigured, and without charm or attractiveness. The moment a girl marries, in New England, she is apt to become a drudge or a lay figure on which to exhibit the latest fashions. She never has beautiful hands, and she would not have a beautiful face if a utilitarian society could "apply" her face to anything but the pleasure of the eye. Her hands lose their shape ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Falieri was not a man used to the position of a lay figure, although at seventy-six the dignified retirement of a throne, even when so encircled with restrictions, would seem not inappropriate. That he was of a haughty and hasty temper seems apparent. It is told of him that, after waiting long for ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... was a pleasant, comfortable woman harassed by something, she did not quite know what. The pastor was a ginger-haired caricature imitated from the northern stage, quite a lay figure. The peasants never laughed, they watched solemnly and absorbedly like children. The servant was just a slim, pert, forward hussy, much too flagrant. And then the son, the actor-manager: he was a dark, ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence


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