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in effigy



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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]

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

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