statue

Pluralstatues

Formsstatues, statuing, statued

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A three-dimensional work of art, usually of a person or animal, made by carving, molding, casting, or sculpting.

   The sculptor unveiled a bronze statue of the city's founder.

   Tourists photographed the marble statues lining the cathedral steps.

   Similarsculpture, figure, effigy, carving

   Note

   The origin is built into the meaning. The word came through Old French from Latin statua, formed on statuō, "to set up or erect". At root, then, a statue is something set up, which is why English raises and erects statues. Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet has "I will raise her statue in pure gold." English also keeps the Latin form statua as a separate word, a doublet of this one.

2. 2
   verbtransitive

   To represent a person or thing in the form of a statue; to render someone or something as a sculpted figure.

   The council voted to statue the explorer in the main square.

   Ancient cities often statued their gods in temple courtyards.

   Similarsculpt, immortalize

   Note

   The verb is made directly from the noun, and its forms follow the ordinary pattern: statues, statuing, statued, with the final e dropped before -ing. Its most striking use is figurative, meaning to fix someone as still as stone. Owen Feltham's Resolves (1623) has "The whole man becomes as if statued into stone and earth." Nothing is sculpted there; the man is simply made motionless.

3. 3
   noundatedcountable

   A portrait; a pictorial likeness of a person, in a now-dated sense of the word.

   The gallery displayed a fine painted statue of the late queen.

   He framed a small statue of his father and set it by the window.

   Similarportrait, likeness, picture

   Note

   An older use stretches the word from carved figures to likenesses of any kind, painted or drawn. Because this use is dated, a modern reader will think of the sculpted figure first, so "a painted statue" now sounds like a painted sculpture. In current writing, choose portrait instead. Keep this sense for reading older texts or for prose that deliberately sounds of its period.

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