Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Of a certain determinate form or shape; resembling something of a determinate figure: as, figurate stones (stones or fossils resembling shells).
  • Involving a figure of speech; figurative.
  • In music, characterized by the use of passing-notes; florid: opposed to simple: as, figurate counterpoint. Also figural, figurative, figured.
  • To figure or represent.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Of a definite form or figure.
  • adjective obsolete Figurative; metaphorical.
  • adjective (Mus.) Florid; figurative; involving passing discords by the freer melodic movement of one or more parts or voices in the harmony.
  • adjective (Mus.) that which is not simple, or in which the parts do not move together tone for tone, but in which freer movement of one or more parts mingles passing discords with the harmony; -- called also figural, figurative, and figured counterpoint or descant (although the term figured is more commonly applied to a bass with numerals written above or below to indicate the other notes of the harmony).
  • adjective (Math.) numbers, or series of numbers, formed from any arithmetical progression in which the first term is a unit, and the difference a whole number, by taking the first term, and the sums of the first two, first three, first four, etc., as the successive terms of a new series, from which another may be formed in the same manner, and so on, the numbers in the resulting series being such that points representing them are capable of symmetrical arrangement in different geometrical figures, as triangles, squares, pentagons, etc.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Forming a figure.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • "figurate" poems, i.e. the letters of each verse, being arranged with due regularity, form artistic designs.

    The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 6: Fathers of the Church-Gregory XI 1840-1916 1913

  • But however much we might be writing as an attempt to figurate an otherwise inarticulable awareness of our own fucked-upness (and to thereby comprehend and control it), the full reality may be less simple.

    Archive 2009-05-01 Hal Duncan 2009

  • But however much we might be writing as an attempt to figurate an otherwise inarticulable awareness of our own fucked-upness (and to thereby comprehend and control it), the full reality may be less simple.

    Genius in a Bottle Hal Duncan 2009

  • Eventually it denoted any num - ber which when added to a figurate number, for exam - ple a square number, generates the next number of the same shape.

    TIME AND MEASUREMENT G. J. WHITROW 1968

  • The figurate frieze in the library was the work of the painter Josef Engerhart.

    Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission

  • Then, after the theme has once more presented itself in a modified form -- variant -- it comes under the pestle of an extremely figurate coda, which demands the study of an artist, the strength of a robust man -- the most vigorous pianistic health, in a word!

    Chopin : the Man and His Music James Huneker 1890

  • Quod supra posita verba Christi figurate intelligenda sint, et non secundum litteram, sicut sonant.

    The Creeds of the Evangelical Protestant Churches. 1889

  • Quod supra posita verba Christi figurate intelligenda sint, et non secundum litteram, sicut sonant.

    The Creeds of the Evangelical Protestant Churches. 1889

  • One Torporley, long since, left a manuscript treatise in Latin in Sion College, wherein is a much more copious table of figurate numbers, which I have caused to be transcribed, with what he says de combinationibus, to send to Mr. Strode.

    Thomas Hariot Stevens, Henry, 1819-1886 1885

  • Dr. Hakewill, in his Apology, tells you Harriot was the first that squared the area of a spherical triangle; and I can tell you, by the perusal of some papers of Torporley's it appears that Harriot could make the sign of any arch at demand, and the converse, and apply a table of sines to solve all equations, and treated largely of figurate arithmetic.

    Thomas Hariot Stevens, Henry, 1819-1886 1885

Comments

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  • The photo under "Visuals" confuses me. Shouldn't this be an 8 on its side?

    August 2, 2011