Etymologically
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figure

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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
  • 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