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stand in an allegorical sense; as, when a passage in a writer may understood literally or figuratively, he who gives it a figurative sense is said to allegorize it.

A figurative sentence or discourse, in which the principal subject is described by another subject resembling it in its properties and circumstances. The real subject is thus kept out of view, and we are left to collect the intentions of the writer or speaker by the resemblance of the secondary to the primary subject.…

A figure in dancing.

A figurative or symbolical reference. [Obs.]

Figurative; symbolical.

Figuratively [Obs.]; by way of allusion; by implication, suggestion, or insinuation.

In the top; at the mast head, or on the higher yards or rigging; overhead; hence (Fig. and Colloq.), in or to heaven.

Fig.: Something lofty, or massive, or very hard to be surmounted.

The perpendicular distance from the base of a figure to the summit, or to the side parallel to the base; as, the altitude of a triangle, pyramid, parallelogram, frustum, etc.

High relief; sculptured work in which the figures project more than half their thickness; as, this figure is an alto-rilievo or in alto-rilievo.

rawberry finch, a small Indian song bird (Estrelda amandava), commonly caged and kept for fighting. The female is olive brown; the male, in summer, mostly crimson; -- called also red waxbill. [Written also amaduvad and avadavat.]

An obtuse-angled figure, esp. and obtuse-angled triangle. [Obs.]

An early coin struck by the dukes of Milan, and bearing the figure of St. Ambrose on horseback.

Any stock of missiles, literal or figurative. Ammunition bread, shoes, etc., such as are contracted for by government, and supplied to the soldiers. [Eng.]

The achromatic figure, formed in mitotic cell-division, consisting of two asters connected by a spindle-shaped bundle of rodlike fibers diverging from each aster, and called the spindle.

A kind of figured stone, rugged and beset with eminences, anciently used in divination. [Obs.] Encyc. Brit.

Largeness, in a figurative sense; breadth; abundance; fullness.

A figure by which a speaker appeals to his hearers or opponents for their opinion on the point in debate. Walker.

anatomy, as in art. The stretched and vivid anatomism of their [i. e., the French] great figure painters. The London Spectator.

Fig.: That which gives stability or security; that on which we place dependence for safety. Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul. Heb. vi. 19.