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Definition of effigy:

  • (noun) a representation of a person (especially in the form of sculpture);

Sentence Examples:

Round the effigy of destruction are strewn the means wherewith his ends are wrought.

When criminals escaped, an image of them was often hung up for several days; whence our hanging in effigy.

The effigy was upwards of six feet high, and had a painted mask, well be-whiskered, and surmounted by a cocked hat.

While the effigy was preparing, the people stood in groups reading the papers; and sundry charitable suggestions were made by the baser among them.

A lovely woman, to whom I was speaking of it yesterday, and who has been admitted in effigy into this harem, seemed to consider the compliment rather equivocal.

As utterly unfounded as the common notions concerning 'low-side windows' and crossed-legged effigies is the idea that the differences in the positions of pastoral staves as represented in sculptured monuments have any meaning whatsoever, secret or personal.

Louis, and his father, and which were destroyed centuries ago, were most probably as valuable as contemporary portraits as they were for their workmanship; likewise the 13th century effigies which remain are remarkable for the beauty of their workmanship.

In other parts of the province and in the diocese of Cadiz, two thousand of these unfortunate creatures were burnt; according to Mariana, a still greater number were burnt in effigy, and one thousand seven hundred suffered different canonical punishments.

The apartment is surrounded with shelves, loaded with piles of busts and figures of the illustrious dead, the effigies of renowned poets, generals, philosophers, statesmen, and all classes of the community, from the earliest times, being presented indiscriminately.

It is impossible to enter one of these sanctuaries without reflecting on the rapid progress of irreligion among a people who, six months before, were, on their knees, adoring the effigies which, at that period, they were eager to mutilate and destroy.

It is a question whether knights generally wore this whole series of defenses, but the monumental effigies are usually so accurate in their representations of actual costume, that we must conclude that at least on occasions of state solemnity they were all worn.

Triumphs were granted to the victorious general, who entered the city leading his spoils and captives in long procession, while his achievements were commemorated in national songs, and his effigy, whether in wood or stone, was erected in the temples.

Simultaneous announcement of this great discovery, by astronomers of different nations, working in widely separate regions of the earth, led to the striking of a gold medal by the French Government in honor of both astronomers and bearing their united effigies.

He charged Sumner with perjury in taking the senatorial oath to his personal grievance and complained that he had been burned and hung in effigy under the advice of Sumner and his brother agitators because of his unswerving devotion to the Constitution.

A swinging-lamp, that burned perpetually before an effigy of the Virgin Mother, threw a faint light on the single rose-window behind the high altar; another, suspended in a low archway, apparently lit the open door of the passage towards the refectory.

If such a custom obtained at the present day, how many lying tomb-stones and monumental effigies would escape the charge of falsehood; and how many unrecorded possessors of talent and character, would breathe in marble for the imitation of their posterity!

It is uncertain whether we are to regard the statue as an effigy of the celestial mother and child, or as the representation of some devout lady who has been spared during her pregnancy, her parturition, or from some disease affecting herself and child.

Upon the receipt of news of the Declaration of Independence of the American colonies, the royalists showed their zeal for the king by burning the effigies of John Hancock and Samuel Adams on the plaza, near where the constitutional monument now stands.

When the Jesuits who had broken this law, refused to yield, they were excommunicated by the Vicar-General, and a pleasant procession was arranged by the townsfolk, in which effigies of damned Jesuits were propelled toward their destination by little devils.

Her solitary position, also, separated from all her kindred except her little sister, a mere effigy of royalty in the hands of statesmen, and surrounded by the formalities and ceremonials of state, which spread sterility around the occupant of a throne.

Traces remain of the gilding with which the effigy was covered; the shields of arms and the curious Norman-French inscription are uninjured, and every little detail of his magnificent memorial is as perfect now as when it was finished five hundred years ago.

Bad, however, as they are, as specimens per se, they are made so much of by the adornments, that their painted effigies and portraits, as they are exhibited in tailors' laboratories, saloons, and establishments, excite the envy and wonder of a gaping population.

During the later years of the reign of Elizabeth the ordinary armor for fighting purposes assumed a character which is very familiar, inasmuch as it is depicted upon scores of brasses and modelled upon hundreds of effigies in all parts of the kingdom.

The veneration for deceased ancestors represented similar ideas with those embodied in sun-worship, and the animal totemism of which the effigy mounds are symbolic was connected with the latter superstition through ancestral worship, the mythical ancestor being identified with the totem.

Among the articles represented were drums, rattles, dishes, weapons, effigies of men, birds, fish, and animals, wooden armor of rods or scales of wood, and remarkable masks, so arranged that the wearer when erect could only see the ground at his feet.

Richard Beauchamp, fourteenth Earl of Warwick, whose effigy lies here in lonely magnificence on the altar-tomb he directed to be made, as though he were too great a personage to have his wife beside him, was holder of the greatest offices of State of his period.

There was every effort made, however, to impress on the constituencies the high merit of the Parliament in making an advantageous and glorious peace, medals being cast for that purpose bearing the effigy of the queen and a Latin motto laudatory of peace.

From these premises, we are certainly justified in concluding that these several effigies had probably a cognate design, possessed a symbolical significance, and were conspicuous objects of religious regard, and that on certain occasions sacrifices were made on the altars within or near them.

He could not have been more personally superb in showing their different effigies if they had been his own family portraits, and he would not spare the strangers a single splendor of the twenty vast, handsome, tiresome, Versailles-like rooms he led them through.

Nobles and peoples gathered to applaud him and, in Saragossa even the tribunal of the Inquisition bore a part, while the students carried around the effigy of a Jesuit and burnt it before the Jesuit house, forcing the rector to witness it from the window.

In Westminster Abbey there are still several of these grim ancient waxen effigies to be seen, by special permission of the Dean, very faded and ghastly, but interesting as likenesses, and for the fragments which time has spared of their once gorgeous attire.

As water streams overflowing from the basin of a fountain, so diamonds, carbuncles, and sapphires, all mingled with broad pieces of gold bearing the effigies of Kings, overflow from the cup in never ceasing streams, to form a glittering hillock upon the sand.

He intended no attempt to arrest; but, having created the effigy of himself and stuffed his knickerbockers and coat to resemble nature and deceive anybody who might return in darkness to his corpse, Brendon found a hiding-place near enough to study what would happen.

For the second time this journey I discovered another curious, though unfortunately mutilated, miniature effigy to a knight of old in chain armor with his legs crossed; one hand is on his sword, the other holds a shield with a coat-of-arms carved upon it.

Caxton is seated before a great geographical globe, which he is turning round leisurely, and "for his own recreation," as, according to Sir Thomas Browne, a philosopher should turn round the orb, of which that globe professes to be the representation and effigies.

She led the way into the best room, a sunny, square room, carpeted with a faded and patched rag carpet, and papered with white-and-green-striped wall-paper, where a few faded effigies of dead members of the family hung in variously sized oval walnut frames.

When a State enrolled herself in favor of the Constitution, bonfires, feasts, and public processions testified to the joy of a portion of the people; while the burning in effigy of prominent Federalists, mobs and riots, testified to the anger of the opponents.

The ornaments of the altars, the chalices, curtains, carpets, gold embroidered robes of the priests, the repositories of the Host, the precious vessels used in extreme unction, the rich clothing and jewelry of the effigies of the Virgin and saints were all plundered.

High up he towered, a hideous effigy in rough-hewn stone, with human face and hands, with the scaly body of a fish, while below his human feet were seen, distorted, half concealed in heaps of withered blossoms borne in offering by his shepherd worshipers.

Nearly every town of the North, including Albany, had burned Hamilton in effigy, albeit with battered noses, for he had his followers everywhere; but here he was met with a refreshing coolness, for which the others of his party, at least, were thankful.

The vivid valiant genius, who so detested and denounced the superfluous horrors with which we surround death and the tomb, would cordially have approved it, little as was his love for monumental effigies, or care for the fame that is dependent on them.

It is painful to picture to one's self the agonizing emotions with which certain philologists would contemplate an authentic effigy of the Attila of speech who, by his is being built or is being done, first offered violence to the whole circle of the proprieties.

Cruelty sensuality, treachery, all nameless crimes, corrupt and render hideous the effigy on the canvas; he sees in it the gradual pollution and ruin of his soul, while his own fleshly features preserve unstained all the freshness and virginity of his sinless youth.

It was defiance as well as answer, and as she threw it in the lowering face of the congregation, her glance fixed on the evangelist who, till then, had stood, mouth open, hand arrested midway of a gesture, a bearded, spectacled effigy of ridiculous surprise.

Nor could such support be in any way expected; but in the long Latin eulogistic verses engraved in brass under the brass effigies of himself, his wife, and their three children, we find him credited with an astonishing variety of virtues and accomplishments.

During all this time, while her husband had been keeping her effigy dangling before the public as a mark for solemn curses, and filthy lampoons, and secretly-circulated disclosures, that spared no sacredness and violated every decorum, she had not uttered a word.

Octavian was thunderstruck, and stood gazing with a wild stare upon the effigy, and his face assumed an expression so ridiculously stupid, that Rinaldo and the bystanders, remarking the absurd resemblance between it and the figure, could with difficulty restrain their mirth.

Spite of the rather unattractive effigies which bear her name, we must believe that she was beautiful and winning, since for her sake he cast aside the so frequent custom of marriage with a sister or some home dignitary and invited her to share his throne.

At the entrance of the hall, an effigy of the hero on horseback was placed under a triumphal arch, with an inscription recalling his greatness, and saying that by virtue of these mighty exploits his children now triumph and hold festival in his honor.

Later in the afternoon the Prince, accompanied by the Prime Minister, in overalls, descended the shaft of one of the gold-mines that amongst them keep the mints of the country busy turning out sovereigns that bear on the reverse the effigy of the kangaroo.

At last out sallied the band, followed by those inevitable giants, and amid mad ringing of bells and fizzing of invisible rockets, forth from the venerable portals issued standards, crosses, tapers, priests in white and gold, and platformed effigies of pilgrims, saints, and deities.

Its nullity in other respects was admitted by the rule that, if a culprit who had been burnt in effigy should return spontaneously, confessing and repenting, he could be admitted to reconciliation or, if he asserted his innocence, he was to be heard in his defense.

It is needless to say that both stories are mere inventions; in many monuments the effigy of the hero commemorated was shown in full pomp above, while in a niche below the skeleton was depicted, by way of pointing a moral too obvious to need further comment.

Let those who burned the Honorable Secretary in effigy remember the continued stream of denunciation that was poured out against the Commission by a portion of the secular press of the Pacific coast, and the reason why the peace measures failed may be better understood.

Amidst the bustle of judicial proceedings, whilst each day some sanguinary drama was recapitulated before the court, whilst sentences, often of savage severity, were recorded, and executions, for the most part in effigy, were of daily occurrence, time was still found for gaiety and amusement.

Many of our thinking brains have undertaken to drive out by mockery this heavenly instinct from the human soul, to efface the effigy of Deity in the soul, and to dissolve this energy, this noble enthusiasm, in the cold, killing breath of a pusillanimous indifference.

Finding themselves unable to gain admittance, they went to the Governor's carriage-house, and took out his elegant coach, and placing the two effigies in it, dragged it by hand around the streets by the light of torches, amid the jeers and shouts of the multitude.

The ground had been carefully prepared, for, ever since Jay sailed, the partisans of the French had been denouncing him and his mission, predicting failure, and, in one case at least, burning him in effigy before it was known whether he had done anything at all.

They bore at the prow the carved effigy of the namesake, and if the Great Bear, for example, made several very happy voyages by setting out when a certain constellation was in the ascendant, that constellation might become known as the Great Bear's constellation.

The first mausoleum which he erected to himself was so constructed that the recumbent effigy or automaton could, when mass was said, slowly rise, clad in full armor, and remain kneeling until the service was ended, when it would slowly resume its former posture.

So, covered in later years by a curtain, the effigy remained until a day arrived in quite recent times, when the family then in possession were giving a dance, and for some reason had the case containing the wax-work carried downstairs and put in an outhouse.

A squalid effigy scantily clothed in rags, a battered old hat crushed down on his dirty face, his great round paunch stuffed with straw, represented the disreputable old rake who after a long course of dissipation was now about to suffer for his sins.

And now, leaving monuments, sleeping figures, epitaphs, inscriptions, and effigies, come and stand for a moment on the steps leading up to the High Altar, that we may take our last look at the Abbey from what is perhaps the most interesting spot in it.

Money was coined, also, with his effigy and inscription, and, in fine, so far as all essential forms and technicalities were concerned, the young Edward was really a reigning king; but, of course, in respect to substantial power, every thing was in Richard's hands.

In the fifteenth century a most revolting custom originated of representing on tombs a skeleton, or worse still, a corpse in a state of corruption; this was followed by the more becoming custom of representing the effigies of corpses enveloped in shrouds tied at the head and feet.

Garrick, from the banks of the Orwell to the neighborhood of the old gate, where the statues of Love and Charity still stood, and near which, crowds soon awoke such echoes as had not been heard in the vicinity since the godlike effigies were first erected.

The earlier effigies and brasses of this period are in many of their details exemplifications of the studded and splinted style of defense, and are in fact of greater use in that respect than the few contemporary brasses and effigies which remain and are generally used as examples.

Just as Juliette had practically burned in effigy almost all the Academicians of her time before she had the opportunity of becoming acquainted with them and finding them charming, so she began by criticizing and censuring Louis Philippe and his children with the greatest severity.

It was probably to confront and outface "Aristophanes and his comedians," and to "abrogate the scurrility" of the "sea-dogs" and "land-critics," that our Resolute lexicographer prefixed to the Enlarged Edition of his Dictionary and to his translation of Montaigne, his portrait or effigies, engraved by Hole.

Henry, with the customary determination of the English character had, no doubt, put himself regularly into training for the event to come off, and it is not unlikely that he may have frequently amused himself by a little practice on the effigy of his intended antagonist.

He wondered why the uncouth stranger wanted a stuffed gorilla, but of all the animals in the collection, he was most pleased to get rid of that hideous effigy, the man-ape that might come to life some dark cold night and raise ructions with the horses.

Books written for the use of royal persons, or dignified ecclesiastics, usually contain the effigies of the proprietor, often attended by his family, and by some allegorical or celestial minister; while the humble scribe, in monkish attire, kneels and presents the book to his patron.

The walls were partly occupied by bookshelves, partly covered by wainscot, and here and there displayed a worn-out portrait of some bygone warrior or dame, who little dreamed how much the color of their effigies should be indebted to the sad effects of damp and mildew.

Old inhabitants narrate how in the infancy of the settlement the whiskey shop was more frequented than the preaching meeting, whenever that was held, and how, on one occasion, a party of scoffing unbelievers bore in mock triumph an effigy of the Savior through the streets.

He may refuse, as in the case of Cardinal Manning, to set up a smooth and whitened monumental effigy, plastered over with colorless panegyric, and may insist on showing a man's true proportions in the alternate light and shadow through which every life naturally and inevitably passes.

Graceful and solemn as they are, they seem rough in outline, as if they were carved by a hand used to calculating for the distant views of the west front, and almost weather-worn, by the side of the more highly-finished effigies in marble and alabaster which are near them.

The hideous muffled chins of the last century had given place to a horned headdress (the horns are broken in little Blanche's effigy) and a close net of gold, each wide mesh, through which the hair shows, being fastened at the crossing with pearls or precious stones.

After that it is dumb again for another year, and sits in the midst of its temple on a golden throne with its five-fingered hand resting on its knees, and its immovable eyes blankly staring before it, just like its silver effigy on the roof up yonder.

Here crumble the dust and effigies of courtiers, warriors, statesmen, lords, dukes, kings, queens and authors; and yet, there is no spot in the Abbey that holds such an abiding interest for mankind as the modest corner where lie the dust of noted poets and philosophers.

The Lords Justices sent over a strong remonstrance in vindication of their conduct, and there the matter ended for the present; but in the beginning of the next year the Lords Justices renewed the attack on their Governor, and he and Rigby were burned in effigy.

To the Emperor his great ancestor's effigy is no symbol of autocracy, but the contrary, for to the Emperor and his subjects Frederick the Great is as much the Father of Prussia, the man who saved it and made it, as Washington was the Father of America.

Even to the mere student it is interesting as being the only existing monument that can with certainty be attributed to this celebrated sculptor, and also as being, in Gothic art, one of the first essays in portraiture in recumbent figures of the dead, as contrasted with mere effigy.

The practice of burning or hanging in effigy, by which a crowd expresses its feelings towards an unpopular person, is a relic of the old belief in a real and sympathetic connection between a man and his image; a belief extant among the unlettered in by-places of civilized countries.

The moonlight revealed the complacent features; the cocky pose of serene confidence presented by the effigy affected the disheartened original with as acute a sense of exasperation as he would have felt if the statue had set thumb to nose and had wriggled the stone fingers in impish derision.

Tombs adorned with the effigies of mailed crusaders and pious dames covered the floor, tattered banners hung in the air, the escutcheons of the Golden Fleece, an order typical of Flemish industry, but of which Emperors and Kings were proud to be the chevaliers, decorated the columns.

George's Hall, another of the old rooms, I thought splendid, with its pure white marble walls and columns and rich adornments of gilt bronze, and there was also an agreeably barbaric hall with entirely gilt columns, many banners, and gigantic effigies of ancient Russian warriors.

The lady was childless, and having presented a handsome offering, and kissed the rock entrance of the cave, in addition to the effigy within the monastery, she waited in the neighborhood for a certain number of months, at the expiration of which she gave birth to a son.

These last three sentences deserve close attention, for some individuals have, in somewhat of a senseless fashion, objected, that a person who can see in a tortoise an emblem of the male, and in a horse-shoe an effigy of the female organ, must be quite too fantastical to deserve notice.

The effigy has not been identified, and whether it be that of a merchant-prince, or some great local landowner, cannot be said; but the original was, at all events, if we may judge from the care evidently taken by the sculptor with the effigy, a person of importance.

He slept in a splendid marble tomb, shining and polished by age, and of a soft fawn color; the invisible hand of time had treated the face of the recumbent effigy rather roughly, flattening the nose, and giving the warlike cardinal an expression of almost Mongolian ferocity.

The reason why ceremonies whose aim is to foster the growth of vegetation should thus be associated with bonfires; why in particular the representative of vegetation should be burned in tree-form or passed across the fire in effigy or in the form of a living couple, will be explained later on.

It would appear that the Jacks did not often venture to impede the Whig mob in the performance of analogous ceremonies; since we read of a certain Fifth of November, when caricature effigies of the Pretender and his chief adherents and supporters were carried in triumph through the streets.

The white horse drooped his soft white nose and weary neck for a long, long time under the effigy of his namesake swinging overhead, and when the Cheap Jack did come out, he seemed so preoccupied that the tired beast got home with fewer blows than usual.

That the people are, to the last degree, exasperated and inflamed, I am far from intending to deny, but surely they have yet been guilty of no outrage so enormous as to justify so severe a punishment; they have generally confined themselves to harmless complaints, or, at least, to executions in effigy.

It was to be a very small simple statue, as became one who prized lowliness of heart, but as he looked up at the vacant place it gave him pleasure to think that hundreds of years after he was dead people would pause before his effigy and praise him and his work.

The effigies on our coins, the signs over shops, the coat of arms outside the carriage panel, and the placards inside the omnibus, are, in common with dolls and paper-hangings, lineally descended from the rude sculpture-paintings in which ancient peoples represented the triumphs and worship of their god-kings.

It was a gouty effigy of Time, clinging to his scythe because he must have fallen without it, and mournfully accepting the hour-glass set in his chest, which held a loudly-ticking clock of flighty opinions and habits; evidently, judging by his soured expression, a cross to the holder.

Two streams which here separate the tongue of land from the adjoining country unite just below the cliff, and form an extensive open valley, which lays the country open for many miles, so that the cliff on which the effigy is found can be seen a great distance.

His name is, to this day, held in execration by the Protestants of the North of Ireland; and his effigy was long, and perhaps still is, annually hung and burned by them with marks of abhorrence similar to those which in England are appropriated to Guy Faux.

In retaliation for the effigy affair, his Irish friends slipped aboard the boat one evening while he was away and spiked his cannon by driving a rat-tail file into the vent; this was after he had carefully loaded it for a demonstration intended to come off the next morning.