Statue of Liberty

American  

noun

1. 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.

2. 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.

---

Statue of Liberty British  

noun

1. Official name: Liberty Enlightening the World.  a monumental statue personifying liberty, in New York Harbor, on Liberty Island: a gift from France, erected in 1885

---

Statue of Liberty Cultural  

1. 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.

---

Discover More

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.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Statue of Liberty

A Statue of Liberty token, bought on a trip to New York, sits in her office.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 3, 2026

There is a massive kinetic metal bust of the man on a Prague street that is larger than the head of the Statue of Liberty.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 20, 2026

A meteor streaked across the New York City area in broad daylight on July 16, 2024, producing a sonic boom as it passed just south of the Statue of Liberty.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 8, 2026

On Thursday, thick haze of smoke blocked views across New York City, including the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty.

From BBC ● Jul. 17, 2026

“She was a writer and a poet. She wrote a poem that is engraved on the Statue of Liberty that says, ‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.’”

From "Lucky Broken Girl" by Ruth Behar