1. In various senses of the vb.: Shaped into a figure or figures; represented by figures, etc.
1552. Huloet, Figured like an Image, imaginatus.
1599. Shaks., Pass. Pilgr., 51.
| But whether vnripe yeares did want conceit, | |
| Or he refusde to take her figured proffer, | |
| The tender nibler would not touch the bait, | |
| But smile, and ieast, at euery gentle offer. |
1697. Dryden, Virg. Æneid, V. 704.
| Accept this Goblet, rough with figur’d Gold, | |
| Which Thracian Cisseus gave my Sire of old. |
1710. Pope, Windsor Forest, 335.
| The figur’d Streams in Waves of Silver roll’d, | |
| And on their Banks Augusta rose in Gold. |
2. Having a particular figure or shape. In comb. with advbs., as fair, foul, ill figured.
a. 1400[?]. Morte Arth., 2151. The faireste fygured folde that fygurede was ever.
c. 1430. Pilgr. Lyf Manhode, IV. ii. (1869), 175. Thilke beste was disgised soo vileliche and so foule figured that [etc.].
a. 1533. Ld. Berners, Huon, civ. 593. Thoughe they were ones fayre now they be fowle and yll fygured.
1821. T. Dwight, Travels, II. 141. Its summits are finely figured, and richly diversified.
† 3. Having definite shape; also, formed into figures or patterns. Cf. FIGURATE A. 2. Obs.
1626. Bacon, Sylva, § 588. Trees and Herbs, in the Growing forth of their Boughes and Branches, are not Figured, and keepe no Order.
1786. Robert Willan, in Medical Communications, II. 118. He had a figured natural stool, and presently after two or three loose motions.
1789. G. White, Selborne (1853), II. xli. 272. Geese and cranes, and most wild-fowls, move in figured flights, often changing their position.
4. Adorned or ornamented with patterns or designs. Figured card = COURT CARD.
c. 1489. Caxton, Blanchardyn and Eglantine, ii. 15. Riche tapysserye of the destruction of Troye, Well and alonge fygured.
1593. Shaks., Rich. II., III. iii. 150. Ile giue … My figur’d Goblets, for a Dish of Wood.
1596. Harington, Metam. Ajax, 36. Fugerd sattin and velvet.
1611. Cotgr., Velours a fond de satin … Figured Satin.
1777. Sheridan, Sch. Scand., II. i. I saw you first sitting at your tambour, in a pretty figured linen gown, with a bunch of keys at your side; your hair combed smooth over a roll, and your apartment hung round with fruits in worsted, of your own working.
1821. Shelley, Prometh. Unb., IV. i.
| The voice of the Spirits of Air and of Earth | |
| Have drawn back the figured curtain of sleep | |
| Which covered our being and darkened our birth | |
| In the deep. |
1882. I. F. Mayo, Mrs. Raven’s Temptation, II. 87. She wore brown stuff dress, a figured shawl, and a close bonnet with a bunch of artificial flowers.
5. Adorned with rhetorical figures; figurative.
1500–20. Dunbar, Poems, lxvi. 10. Figurit speiche, with faceis tua.
c. 1698. Locke, Cond. Underst., § 32 (1762), 127. Figured and metaphorical expressions do well to illustrate more abstruse and unfamiliar ideas.
1727. Pope, etc., Of the Art of Sinking in Poetry, 108. Style is divided by the rhetoricians into the proper and the figured.
1861. M. Arnold, Pop. Educ. France, 170. The figured language of which he is a master.
6. Of a dance: Consisting of figures.
1711. Shaftesb., Charac. (1737), III. ii. 91. ’Tis but a vulgar Species of Enthusiasm, which is mov’d chiefly by Shew and Ceremony, and wrought upon by Chalices and Candles, Robes, and figur’d Dances.
1879. Geo. Eliot, A College Breakfast-Party, 95.
| Nor any missing of their figured dance | |
| By blundering molecules. |
7. Mus. a. = FLORID. b. Figured bass = thorough bass: see BASS sb.5
1879. Grove, Dict. Mus., s.v., Figured Counterpoint is where several notes of various lengths, with syncopations and other ornamental devices, are set against the single notes of the Canto fermo; and Figured melody, or Canto figurato, was the breaking up of the long notes of the church melodies into larger or more rapid figures or passages.
8. Her. (See quot. and cf. FIGURE sb. 10 c.)
1830. in Robson, Brit. Her., III. Gloss.
1889. Elvin, Dict. Heraldry, s.v., Charges on which human faces are depicted, are blazoned Figured, as the Sun, Crescents, etc.
Hence Figuredly adv.
1637. Abp. J. Williams, Holy Table, i. 11. Not so figuredly and distinctly in the later.
