a large copper statue, on Liberty Island, in New York harbor, depicting a woman holding a burning torch: designed by F. A. Bartholdi and presented to the U.S. by France; unveiled 1886.
Also called Statue of Liberty play. Football. a play in which a back, usually the quarterback, fakes a pass, and a back or end running behind him takes the ball from his upraised hand and runs with it.
British Dictionary definitions for statue of liberty
Statue of Liberty
noun
a monumental statue personifying liberty, in New York Harbor, on Liberty Island: a gift from France, erected in 1885Official name: Liberty Enlightening the World
A giant statue on an island in the harbor of New York City; it depicts a woman representing liberty, raising a torch in her right hand and holding a tablet in her left. At its base is inscribed a poem by Emma Lazarus that contains the lines “Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” Frederic Bartholdi, a Frenchman, was the sculptor. France gave the Statue of Liberty to the United States in the nineteenth century; it was shipped across the Atlantic Ocean in sections and reassembled. The statue was overhauled and strengthened in the 1980s.
Note
For many immigrants who came to the United States by ship in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Statue of Liberty made a permanent impression as the first landmark they saw as they approached their new home.
