FIGURING • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Figuring

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/fˈɪgjərɪŋ/ Listen

verb

Figure v. t. (past & past part. figured; pres. part. figuring)

1.

To represent by a figure, as to form or mold; to make an image of, either palpable or ideal; also, to fashion into a determinate form; to shape. "If love, alas! be pain I bear," "No thought can figure, and no tongue declare.Prior."

2.

To embellish with design; to adorn with figures. "The vaulty top of heaven Figured quite o'er with burning meteors."

3.

To indicate by numerals; also, to compute. "As through a crystal glass the figured hours are seen."

4.

To represent by a metaphor; to signify or symbolize. "Whose white vestments figure innocence."

5.

To prefigure; to foreshow. "In this the heaven figures some event."

6.

(Mus.)

(a)

To write over or under the bass, as figures or other characters, in order to indicate the accompanying chords.

(b)

To embellish.

To figure out, to solve; to compute or find the result of.

To figure up, to add; to reckon; to compute the amount of.

Figure v. i.

1.

To make a figure; to be distinguished or conspicious; as, the envoy figured at court. "Sociable, hospitable, eloquent, admired, figuring away brilliantly."

2.

To calculate; to contrive; to scheme; as, he is figuring to secure the nomination. (Colloq.)

go figure a phrase used by itself as an interjection to mean "How can one explain that?", or to express puzzlement over some seeming contradiction. (Colloq.)

See images of 'Figuring'

Etymology of 'Figuring'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Figuring" Quotes from Famous Books

... assuredly, but which had, after all, the merit, in her eyes, of having been contested. During the evening, as I was leaving the whist-table, she advanced toward me deliberately, and requested me to do her the honor of figuring with her in the character dance called the cotillon.[B] I excused myself laughingly on my complete inexperience; she insisted, declaring that I had evident dispositions for dancing, and reminding me of the agility I had displayed ...

— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet

... Toast is promoted, figuring at the head of a pantry quite equal to that of his great master, who regards his improvement with some such eyes as Charles the Twelfth of Sweden regarded that of his great rival Peter, after the affair ...

— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper

... within the last seventy years, every one of these salutary principles. Your policy has been this; you have retained at home the management of and property in colonial lands. You have magnificent sums figuring in your estimates for the ordinary expenses of their governments, instead of allowing them to bear their own expenses. Instead of suffering them to judge what are the measures best adapted to secure their peaceful relations with the aboriginal tribes, and endeavouring to secure their ...

— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley

... cast to the swine or throw away, did well, I hold him much more to be commended of whom, the foregoing tale moving me thereto, I am to speak and who with a quaint story rebuked Messer Cane della Scala, a magnificent nobleman, of a sudden and unaccustomed niggardliness newly appeared in him, figuring, in the person of another, that which he purposed to say to him concerning themselves; the which was on ...

— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio

... first-rate man you are to me, and what pleasure your letter has given me! Probably you already know that I also have been figuring as an invalid these last five weeks.—God be thanked and praised that I am already pretty fairly on my legs again, without rheumatism in the joints or gout! In a few days I shall begin my provincial ...

— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated

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