in effigy

1. 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]

Example Sentences

In 1917, that meant Carrie Chapman Catt having tea with President Wilson inside the White House while Paul and her friends tried to burn him in effigy in Lafayette Square, Taub said.

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And during a violent 1975 pressman’s strike, seen in the opening of the film, workers burned Graham in effigy.

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Anti-Chessman crowds burned Brown in effigy and booed him and his family in public.

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“They have stopped burning you in effigy.”

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But then the political became personal: Butler was physically attacked in 2017 while speaking in Brazil, and burned in effigy by protesters who shouted, “Take your ideology to hell.”

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