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/fˈɪgjərhˌɛd/ Listen

noun

Figurehead n.

(Naut.) The figure, statue, or bust, on the prow of a ship.

A person who allows his name to be used to give standing to enterprises in which he has no responsible interest or duties; a nominal, but not real, head or chief.

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Etymology of 'Figurehead'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Figurehead" Quotes from Famous Books

... replied, as if she had been explaining most fully. "You are the figurehead, the goddess of the machine. You will see that all goes right, and give Lord Wolfer his breakfast, and preside at the dinner when ...

— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice

... analogy of a supposed Gr. [Greek: boukentauros], ox-centaur (from [Greek: bous] and [Greek: Kentauros]). This led to the explanation of the name as derived from the head of an ox having served as the galley's figurehead. This derivation is, however, fanciful; the name bucentaurus is unknown in ancient mythology, and the figurehead of the bucentaurs, of which representations have come down to us, is the lion of St Mark. [v.04 p.0658] The name bucentaur seems, indeed, to have been given to any ...

— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various

... accomplished it, when David Hull appeared. A new personality; a plausible personality, deceptive because self-deceiving—yet not so thoroughly self-deceived that it was in danger of hindering its own ambition. David Hull—just the kind of respectable, popular figurehead and cloak the desperate ...

— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips

... propose to linger over the perruque. The Restoration was a time of carnival when, if the men were overdressed, the ladies were underdressed; and the perruque was a part of the masquerade. In such a figurehead you could be as licentious as you chose—and you were; you could only be serious in satire. The perruque accounts for Dryden and his learned pomp, for Rochester and Sedley, and for Congreve, who told Voltaire that he desired to be considered as a gentleman ...

— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett

... which throughout the proceedings had been as expressionless as that of a wooden figurehead, now ...

— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman

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