lay figure

American  

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.

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lay figure British  

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

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Etymology

Origin of lay figure

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 )

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

lay figure

Without a sympathetic audience the orator is only a lay figure, without a sympathetic circle of readers the writer is a wasted force.

From The Revival of Irish Literature Addresses by Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, K.C.M.G, Dr. George Sigerson, and Dr. Douglas Hyde by Charles Gavan Duffy

He never used him as a lay figure on which he might display the drapery of a pedant.

From My Unknown Chum by Charles Bullard Fairbanks

Helen, to a mature mind so full of interest ethical and artistic, is beyond the comprehension of the children as anything more than a lay figure.

From Literature in the Elementary School by Porter Lander MacClintock

And all this time she had sat like a statue, like a milliner's lay figure, to be dressed, unheeding, unnoticing it all, until Susan had finished.

From The Actress' Daughter A Novel by May Agnes Fleming

The mere mention of the rival's name sufficed to reduce Lilly to the position of nothing but a lay figure.

From The Song of Songs by Hermann Sudermann