figure
Forms
- Plural
- figures
- present (v1)
- figure
- past (v2)
- figured
- past participle (v3)
- figured
- present participle
- figuring
- 3rd person singular
- figures
Definitions
1.A drawing or diagram conveying information.
2.The representation of any form, as by drawing, painting, modelling, carving, embroidering, etc.; especially, a representation of the human body.
- Ever since I was a young’n and my dad gave me a Godzilla figure, I’ve been a huge fan of the big green lizard from the Land of the Rising Sun.
3.A person, thing, or action representative of another
4.The appearance or impression made by the conduct or career of a person.
- He cut a sorry figure standing there in the rain.
- I made some figure there.
1.To calculate, to solve a mathematical problem.
2.To come to understand.
- I can’t figure if he’s telling the truth or lying.
3.To think, to assume, to suppose, to reckon.
- “I know you figure me for a leftneck fool, correct?”
4.To be reasonable or predictable.
- It figures that somebody like him would be upset about the situation.
Frequency
Overall
Common· #663
By learning goal
- Everyday conversation
- Rare
- General reading & writing
- Common
- Academic
- Common
- Literature
- Rare
Etymology
From Middle English figure, borrowed from Old French figure, from Latin figūra (“form, shape, form of a word, a figure of speech, Late Latin a sketch, drawing”), from fingō (“to form, shape, mold, fashion”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰeyǵʰ- (“to mold, shape, form, knead”).