lay figure

1. 1.

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

   Broaderdummy

Questions about lay figure

What does lay figure mean?

lay figure means "dummy in the form of an artist's jointed model of the human body".

Is lay figure a common word?

lay figure is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.