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

Hers was not the disposition to act the r�le of a lay figure, it will be easily imagined.

From The Last of the Vikings by Bowling, John

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

From My Unknown Chum by Fairbanks, Charles Bullard

The lay figure or type is one all through.

From The Eliminator; or, Skeleton Keys to Sacerdotal Secrets by Westbrook, Richard B.

Angela might have been a lay figure for all they seemed to care.

From The "Genius" by Dreiser, Theodore

Why should we have to learn to be musicians, and expend our poetical powers, merely to produce a sort of block, or lay figure, for him to give life and motion to?

From The Serapion Brethren, Vol. I. by Hoffmann, Ernst Theodor Wilhelm