[ad. L. figment-um, f. fig- short stem of fingĕre to feign, fashion.]
† 1. Something moulded or fashioned, e.g., an image, a figure, a model. Obs.
1592. R. D., Hypnerotomachia, 34 b. The excellencie, dilicatnes and perfection of this figment and woorkmanshippe cannot be suffi[ci]entlie expressed.
1607. Topsell, Four-f. Beasts (1658), 97. Some are of opinion, that this Achaian Hart was but an invention or figment made in bread.
1664. H. More, Myst. Iniq., viii. 24. Whether if a simple soul, being struck by the confidence and canting of this imposturous Magician into a full belief that this Statue is become the visible, but the true and eternal God of Heaven and Earth, should therefore worship that Divine Complicate as is pretended, (though it be really a mere figment) for the true God, this act of worship be blameless and irreprehensible, or whether it constitute a Fifth Mode of Idolatry.
2. A product of fictitious invention.
a. An invented statement, story, doctrine, etc. † In early use also: A fraudulent device.
1432–50. trans. Higden (Rolls), I. 177. [The Greeks] reteyne to them the figmentes of Sinonis, the fallace of Vlixes.
1577. Hanmer, Anc. Eccl. Hist., 50. They plainely expresse the fond figments of hereticall persons.
1598. B. Jonson, Ev. Man in Hum., IV. iv. Deliro. I heard he was to meet your worship here. Punt. You heard no figment, sir; I do expect him at every pulse of my watch.
a. 1639. W. Whately, Prototypes, II. xxiv. (1640), 9. It is a sin to do evill that good may come of it, as S. Paul teacheth, Rom. 3. It is a sin to lie, even for Gods cause, and to defend even his justice with false tales, and figments.
1774. J. Bryant, A New System; or, an Analysis of Ancient Mythology, I. 340. From this abuse of terms the silly figment took its rise.
1862. Thackeray, Round. Papers, On half a loaf, 235. Have we … invented a monstrous figment about going to shoot pheasants with Mac in the morning?
1874. Stubbs, The Constitutional History of England (1875), II. xvii. 516. Royal prerogative was not in its origin a figment of theorists.
b. Something which exists only as an arbitrarily framed notion of the mind.
1624. Gataker, A Discussion of the Popish Doctrine of Transubstantiation, 33. We haue little reason to receiue it, as a truth of Christ, or a principle of Christianitie, great reason to reject it, as a figment of mans braine, yea as a doctrine of the diuell, inuented to wrong Christ and Christianitie.
1665. Glanvill, Scepsis Scientifica, 71. Therefore [space] has a kind of being, that is no arbitrary figment.
1744. Berkeley, Siris, § 335. According to that philosopher [Plato], goodness beauty, vertue, and such like, are not figments of the mind.
1875. Jowett, Plato (ed. 2), II. 201, Cratylus, Introduction. We must not conceive that this logical figment had ever a real existence, or is anything more than an effort of the mind to give unity to infinitely various phenomena.
1877. E. Caird, A Critical Account of the Philosophy of Kant, II. xii. 484. A self-conscious being, isolated from his fellows, existing alone in an unconscious world, is a figment of abstraction.
