definition of the word figure

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Figure

Wikipedia

A figure showing some relationships between variables.

An advertisement promising women to improve their figures.

A sports figure.

A skating figure.

From Middle English figure < Old French figure < Latin figura (“‘form, shape, form of a word, a figure of speech, LL. a sketch, drawing’”) < fingere (“‘to form, shape, mold, fashion’”)

• IPA: /ˈfɪgjɚ/ (GenAm)
• IPA: /ˈfɪgə/ (RP)
•  Audio (US)^{help, file}

  Rhymes: -ɪɡə(r)

• Hyphenation: fig‧ure

figure (plural figures)

1. A drawing or representation conveying information.
   • 2004, Joshua Tree National Park 2004 Visitor Study:

     For example, while Figure 1 shows information for 516 visitor groups, Figure 3 presents data for 1,625 individuals. A note above each graph or table specifies the information illustrated. ... For example, although Joshua Tree NP visitors returned 525 questionnaires, Figure 1 shows data for only 516 respondents.

2. A person or thing representing a certain consciousness.
3. A human figure, which dress or corset must fit to; the shape of human body.
   • 1919, B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols, Searchlights on Health:

     The origin of the corset is lost in remote antiquity. The figures of the early Egyptian women show clearly an artificial shape of the waist produced by some style of corset.

4. A numeral.
5. A number.
   • 1996, David Irving v. Penguin Books and Deborah Lipstadt:

     (i) in the 1966 edition of The Destruction of Dresden Irving contended that 135,000 were estimated authoritatively to have been killed and further contended that the documentation suggested a figure between 100,00 and 250,000;

6. A shape.
   • 1908, Algernon Blackwood, John Silence, Physician Extraordinary:

     And these were not human shapes, or the shapes of anything I recognised as alive in the world, but outlines of fire that traced globes, triangles, crosses, and the luminous bodies of various geometrical figures.

7. A visible pattern as in wood or cloth.
8. A dance figure.
9. A figure of speech.

• dark figure
• text figure
• musical figure
• significant figure
• figure eight
• figure of speech
• figure skating

• figurine
• figurative
• figuratively

Definition from Wiktionary Content avaible with GNU Free Documentation License

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