1. A piece of ornamental carving, usually a bust or full-length figure, placed over the cut-water of a ship.
1765. Ann. Reg., 185. We hear that his majesty’s ship the Newcastle will soon have a new figure head, the old one being almost worn out.
1833. Marryat, P. Simple (1863), 113. D—n it, if her figure-head and bows be finished off by the same builder, she’s perfect.
1887. Besant, The World Went Very Well Then, xxvii. 207. Even the beautiful carved group which once served for a figure-head, such as the French love, broken and mutilated.
b. humorously for: Face (of a person).
1840. Marryat, Poor Jack, v. [It] had at the time ‘knocked his figure-head all to smash.’
1884. D. Pae, Eustace, 91. If you don’t want your figure-head spoiled.
2. Said depreciatingly of one who holds the position of head of a body of persons, a community, society, etc., but possesses neither authority nor influence. Also attrib.
1883. The Congregationalist, XII. Dec., 1019. Mere diocesan figure-heads with no opinions at all.
1885. Frederick Daniel, In an Old Virginia Town, in Harper’s Mag., ix. March, 610/2. He was a mere figure-head president, according to our modern parlance.
1891. Spectator, 12 Dec., 832/2. No one can say that Lord Salisbury has been a mere figure-head to the Government.
3. Arch. A grotesque head, animal, etc., carved in stone on the corbel of a building; a corbel-head.
1874. Archæol. Assoc. Jrnl., Dec., 416. Its internal wall is clearly that of the original nave, as the row of figure-heads is continued inside that portion of the church.
Hence Figure-headless a., without a figure-head. Figure-headship, the position of figure-head.
1878. Besant & Rice, Celia’s Arb., I. xv. 219. There was one old gentleman in particular, a genius in figure-head carving, who had his studio in the Dockyard, and furnished her Majesty’s Navy with bows, decorated in so magnificent a style, that one, who, like me, remembers them, is fain to weep in only looking at the figure-headless ironclads of the present degenerate days.
1884. Pall Mall G., 14 May, 3/1. The figure-headship of the Opposition.
