in effigy

Idioms and Phrases

Symbolically. For example, That umpire was completely unfair—let's burn him in effigy . Now used only figuratively, this term formerly signified a way of carrying out the sentence of a criminal who had escaped, such as burn in effigy or hang in effigy . A dummy was made of the criminal or a detested political figure and subjected to the prescribed punishment. [c. 1600]