Pl. -ti, occas. -tes. [It. figurante, pr. pple. of figurare to FIGURE.] = prec. 1.
1782. Miss Burney, Cecilia (1809), I. viii. 81. The figuranti will divert you beyond measure!
1821. Byron, Juan, IV. lxxxv.
| As for the figuranti, they are like | |
| The rest of all that tribe; with here and there | |
| A pretty person which perhaps may strike. |
1826. Heber, Journ. India (1828), II. xxviii. 283. Their dress is lighter than the bundles of red cloth which swaddle the figuranté of Hindostan, and their dancing is said to be more indecent.
transf. 1830. Scott, Demonol., i. 20. The green figurantés, whom the patient’s depraved imagination had so long associated with these moveables, came capering and frisking to accompany them, exclaiming with great glee.
1870. O. W. Holmes, Old Vol. of Life (1891), 268–9. The tranquillizing green of the sweet human qualities, which do not make us shade our eyes like the spangles of conversational gymnasts and figurantes.
