figure

Pronunciation

• IPA: UK /ˈfɪɡ.ə/, US /ˈfɪɡ.jɚ/^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English figure, borrowed from Old French figure (“shape, body; figure of speech”),^[2][3][4] from Latin figūra (“shape, form, figure”),^[2][4] from fig-, the stem of fingere (“to shape, form; to devise, feign”),^[5][3][6] from Proto-Indo-European *dheigh- (“to form, build”),^[2][4] the root also of dough and fiction.^[5][6] The verb is Middle English figuren, from Old French figurer, from figūrāre (“to form, shape”).^[5][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A numeral: probably before 1200, in the Ancrene Riwle,^[3] or about 1200.^[2][7] Word Origins notes that the word came into English with nearly its whole present range of meanings.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The visible appearance of a person is from the mid-13th century,^[2] and the form or shape of a thing, and a statue or likeness, from before 1300.^[3][2] Philosophical and scientific senses come from Latin figūra used to translate Greek σχῆμα (skhêma).^[2] A geometric figure is from 1340^[9] or the mid-14th century,^[2] a rhetorical figure from about 1340^[3] or the late 14th century,^[2] and hence figure of speech from the 1550s.^[2] A diagram in a text is from the late 14th century.^[2] The verb meant “to represent in a picture” from the late 14th century,^[2] or 1389,^[3] and “to picture in the mind” from about 1600.^[2][9] “To work out a sum” is American English from 1833, hence colloquial “to expect, conclude” from 1837.^[2] Figure-skating is from 1835, from the circular patterns skaters once traced on the ice.^[2]

Timeline

• before 1200 – a numeral.^[3]
• mid-13th century – a person's appearance.^[2]
• before 1300 – a shape; a statue.^[3]
• c. 1340 – a figure of speech.^[3]
• late 14th century – verb, to represent.^[2]
• c. 1600 – to imagine.^[2][9]
• 1833 – to calculate.^[2]
• 1835 – figure-skating.^[2]
• 1837 – to expect, conclude.^[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A written symbol for a number; a numeral.
2. An amount expressed in numbers.
3. The shape of the human body, especially a woman's.
4. A person, especially an important or well-known one: a public figure.
5. A picture, statue or other representation.
6. A diagram or illustration in a text.
7. A geometric form made of points, lines or planes.
8. A figure of speech.

Verb

1. To calculate with numbers.
2. (informal) To conclude or believe.
3. To be important or prominent: figure in the story.
4. To depict or represent.

Word family

• figurer
• figurable
• figureless
• outfigure
• prefigure
• refigure
• figure out

Related words

• figurine
• figurative
• configure
• disfigure
• transfigure
• fiction
• feign
• effigy
• dough

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000), 4th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
5. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press