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mannequin

nounattested in dialogue

  • New Zealand//ˈmɛn.ə.kən//
  • India//ˈman.ɪ.kɪn//
  • //ˈmæn.ɪ.kɪn//

A dummy, or life-size model of the human body, used for martial arts training or the fitting or displaying of clothes.

noun

  1. 1

    A dummy, or life-size model of the human body, used for martial arts training or the fitting or displaying of clothes.

    At the same time, Mr. Bolton was intrigued by Mr. Sundsbo’s proposal to make models look like mannequins because it spoke to the blurring of boundaries — between good and evil, angels and demons, nature and technology, permanence and decay — that was a consistent theme of the McQueen collections.

    There was a time when a mannequin was the sculptural equivalent of fashion model. Like a fashion model, the mannequin was intended to reflect our social, professional and aesthetic aspirations.

    With the idea that guests may feel lonely eating at a restaurant that can only reach 50% capacity[…]the restaurant will be placing mannequins throughout its dining rooms.

  2. 2

    A jointed model of the human body used by artists, especially to demonstrate the arrangement of drapery.

  3. 3

    An anatomical model of the human body for use in teaching of e.g. CPR.

  4. 4

    datedA person who models clothes.

    She screamed out direction to various mannequins. "Clothilde, Virginie, quickly, my little ones, the little tailleur gris clair and the robe de soirée ‘soupir d'automne.’ Marcelle, my child, the little mimosa suit of crêpe de chine." It was a charming morning. Marcelle, Clothilde, Virginie, bored and scornful, passed slowly round, squirming and wriggling in the time-honoured fashion of mannequins.

    […]all of which made a perfect neutral background for the mannequins who moved around swiftly, gracefully, exhibiting one glorious creation after another.

Etymology

Borrowed from French mannequin, derived from Old French [Term?] (“little man, figurine”), derived from Middle Dutch mannekin (“little man”) or mannekijn (see English manikin), diminutive of man (“man”). By surface analysis, man + -kin. Compare ramequin/ramekin. Doublet of manakin and manikin.

Forms

plural
mannequins
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).