lay figure

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lay figure

2. A subservient or insignificant person.

[From obsolete layman, from Dutch leeman, variant of ledenman : obsolete Dutch led, limb (from Middle Dutch lit) + man, man (from Middle Dutch; see manikin).]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

lay figure

1. (Art Terms) 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

[C18: from obsolete layman, from Dutch leeman, literally: joint-man]

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

lay′ fig`ure

1. a jointed model of the human body, usu. of wood, from which artists work in the absence of a living model; mannequin.

2. a person of no importance, individuality, distinction, etc.; nonentity.

[1785–95; lay, extracted from obsolete layman < Dutch leeman]

lay figure

A wooden model of the human body that is jointed so that it can be posed and arranged in clothing; used by artists and sculptors.

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Noun

lay figure - dummy in the form of an artist's jointed model of the human body

dummy - a figure representing the human form

Translations

manichino [come modello]

lay figure

n → Gliederpuppe f; (fig) → Marionette f

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

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She became impersonal and forgot her husband, only using him as a lay figure to give point to her tale.

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His particular trick of speaking of any third person as of a lay figure was exasperating.

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But already Percerin, goaded by the idea that the king was to be told he stood in the way of a pleasant surprise, had offered Lebrun a chair, and proceeded to bring from a wardrobe four magnificent dresses, the fifth being still in the workmen's hands; and these masterpieces he successively fitted upon four lay figures, which, imported into France in the time of Concini, had been given to Percerin II.

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Here and there, above this shelf, a head of Niobe, hanging to a nail, presented her pose of woe; a Venus smiled; a hand thrust itself forward like that of a pauper asking alms; a few "ecorches," yellowed by smoke, looked like limbs snatched over-night from a graveyard; besides these objects, pictures, drawings, lay figures, frames without paintings, and paintings without frames gave to this irregular apartment that studio physiognomy which is distinguished for its singular jumble of ornament and bareness, poverty and riches, care and neglect.

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The most intriguing hangs--yes, hangs--adjacent to the Wesselmann cut-out, an artist's lay figure astride one of the pieces.

SIMPLE PLEASURES

Denise Bellon (1902-1999), Salvador |Dali holding an artist's lay figure (the chauffeur in the Taxi pluvieux), International Exhibition of Surrealism, Paris, 1938.

Artists all dolled up for a day's work in the studio; The relationship between artists and mannequins stretches back hundreds of years. Richard Edmonds looks at a fascinating book exploring this dynamic PROFILE

The solution was to pin the shawl to a lay figure he had sent from London.

Nostalgic image still fascinates, a hundred years on; One of Wales' most famous paintings depicts the humble image of a woman arriving at a chapel service. In the final part of our Snapshot of a Nation mini-series, Oliver Fairclough examines what Salem, by Sydney Curnow Vosper, tells us about life in Wales in the early 20th century

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