lay figure

noun

1. a jointed model of the human body, usually of wood, from which artists work in the absence of a living model.
2. a similar figure used in shops to display costumes.
3. a person of no importance, individuality, distinction, etc.; nonentity.

lay figure

noun

1. an artist's jointed dummy, used in place of a live model, esp for studying effects of drapery
2. a person considered to be subservient or unimportant

Word History and Origins

Origin of lay figure¹

1785–95; lay, extracted from obsolete layman < Dutch leeman, variant of ledenman, equivalent to leden- (combining form of lid limb, cognate with Old English, Middle English lith ) + man man )

Word History and Origins

Origin of lay figure¹

C18: from obsolete layman, from Dutch leeman, literally: joint-man

Example Sentences

Cold for all the summer beyond the panes, for all the tropical heat of the room itself, a harsh thin light glared through the windows, hungrily seeking some draped lay figure, some pallid shape of academic goose-flesh, but finding only the glass and nickel and bleakly shining porcelain of a laboratory.

From Literature

It shows how from being an inconspicuous studio tool, a piece of equipment as necessary as easel, pigments and brushes, the lay figure became the "fetishised" subject of the artist's painting, and eventually, in the 20th century, a work of art in its own right.

From BBC

A dandy, on the other hand, is the clothes on a man, not a man in clothes, a living lay figure who displays much dress, and is quite satisfied if you praise it without taking heed of him.

From Project Gutenberg

They were within twenty paces of the silent watcher when he moved--up to that time he might have been a lay figure.

From Project Gutenberg

The Christ is a popular lay figure that never lived, and a lay figure of pagan origin—a lay figure that was once the Ram and afterward the Fish; a lay figure that in human form was the portrait and image of a dozen different gods.

From Project Gutenberg