What does figure mean

Crossword clues for figure

figure

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English

figure

I.noun

COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES

a central figure (=an important person with a lot of influence)

▪ During this time he was a central figure in American politics.

a controversial figure (=a person who does controversial things)

▪ He is a controversial figure in politics.

a hate figure (=someone who is hated by a lot of people)

▪ After the incident, he became a hate figure in the British press.

a key figure (=a key person)

▪ She was a key figure in the election campaign.

a realistic figure/price

▪ A more realistic figure for energy saving would be 20 percent.

a target figure

▪ The government has set a target figure of 6.2%

an authority figure (=someone, such as a parent or teacher, who has the power to tell young people what they can do)

▪ The teacher is an authority figure, like the parent.

approach/reach/go into etc double figures

▪ The death toll is thought to have reached double figures.

attendance figures

▪ Last year’s fair saw attendance figures of 32,000.

boyish figure

▪ At 45, she still had a trim boyish figure.

collate information/results/data/figures

▪ A computer system is used to collate information from across Britain.

colourful character/figure (=someone who is interesting and unusual)

comparable figures/data/results

▪ comparable figures for the same period of time last year

crime figures/statistics

▪ The new crime figures are not good.

double figures

▪ King’s was the only other score in double figures.

export sales/figures (=the total number of products that are sold to other countries)

▪ Export sales exceeded 50% of the company’s total turnover.

▪ Hong Kong is a major trading power, with annual export figures rivalling those of Germany.

father figure

▪ Ken was a father figure to all of us.

figure of eight

figure of speech

figure skating

forlorn figure

▪ a forlorn figure sitting all by herself

full figure/face/breasts etc

▪ clothes for the fuller figure

heroic figure

▪ She portrayed him as a heroic figure.

in round figures (=expressed as the nearest 10, 100, 1,000 etc)

▪ Altogether, in round figures, there are about three thousand students here.

lone figure

▪ A lone figure was standing at the bus stop.

massaging...figures

▪ Myers accused the government of deliberately massaging the unemployment figures.

prostrate body/figure/form

public figure (=famous person)

▪ Although not a public figure, he was a man of great influence.

run into six figures (=be over £100,000 or $100,000)

▪ The final cost of the project will easily run into six figures.

sales figures

▪ The company said its sales figures continued to show growth.

seasonally adjusted figures/rates/data etc (=ones that are changed according to what usually happens at a particular time of year)

shadowy figures

▪ the shadowy figures who control international terrorist organizations

significant figure

single figures

▪ Interest rates have stayed in single figures for over a year now.

slender figure

▪ Laura’s tall, slender figure

stick figure

the exact amount/number/figure

▪ I don’t know the exact amount, but it was a lot.

the inflation figures

▪ April's inflation figures are likely to show a further fall.

trim figure

▪ a trim figure

unemployment figures/statistics

▪ They publish monthly unemployment figures for the UK.

up-to-date information/data/figures/news etc

▪ They have access to up-to-date information through a computer database.

COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS

■ ADJECTIVE

central

▪ Like the east, this gable is symmetrically composed round a central still figure, but the construction is otherwise extremely different.

▪ A stele from Beaune museum shows him as the three-headed central figure of a triad of naked seated gods.

▪ First, you should get it clear in your mind just what the private-eye who is the central figure is.

▪ Ann Black, the central figure in State and Main, is, however, classic Mamet.

▪ The King was a central figure in the ritual of the church.

▪ In this long, hard pull, I was now cast as the central figure.

▪ What about a central figure in the case, the plaintiff, David Irving?

▪ He was too good at games for that, too central a figure among us to retreat into himself.

comparable

▪ The comparable figure for white households was 45 percent, and for non-immigrant black households, 39 percent.

▪ Because of changes in coverage, comparable figures are not available for 1981.

▪ The comparable figure, it said, for optical fibres was nearly £2000.

▪ The comparable United Kingdom figure for this period was 34 percent.

▪ The closest comparable figure for Wirral is the annual prevalence rate for the 16-34-year-old age group: 12 per 1,000.

▪ The comparable figure for expenditure in 1979-80 was £2.4 million.

▪ The comparable figure in 1979 was 2,750.

▪ The comparable figure for September 1988 was 397,000.

double

▪ Inflation was often in double figures.

▪ Twenty-one times in the last 21 games he has scored in double figures.

▪ It went into double figures on the first page.

▪ Johnson had not scored in double figures in the first five games.

▪ The young could number anything from two to well into double figures.

▪ In the nine games since, he has scored in double figures seven times.

▪ The big three's domination is such that their nearest rivals Limerick don't even make it into double figures.

▪ Before a morose crowd limply reaching double figures battle commenced at three o'clock.

exact

▪ Immediately contracts have been exchanged the exact redemption figure should be obtained from the mortgagee.

▪ No exact figure on how much revenue this generates could be obtained from state tax officials.

▪ Clients are apt to minimise numbers of assignments, whilst headhunters maximise them, and neither are willing to divulge exact figures.

▪ State biologists estimate its statewide population at 4, 000 to 6, 000, but exact figures are not known.

▪ I he exact commission figure is a matter for negotiation between the artist's manager and the agent.

▪ The exact figure remains undisclosed, but will be the same as Mr Leigh-Pemberton's pay over the past year.

▪ But for the writers and early translators of the Gospels, it was a very precise term, denoting a very exact figure.

▪ Rounding up from 0.3871, the more exact figure, to 0.39 gave Craig an unearned bonus of I 1.07 votes.

high

▪ As the angry voices rose higher and higher other black-gowned figures came in.

▪ In 1978 dollars this high figure becomes $ 5 million.

▪ Both types of survey show a far higher figure for crimes committed than do the official statistics produced by the police.

▪ The higher figures came for such easy-to-call labels as bulimia and alcohol and drug dependence.

▪ In absolute levels, we have fallen off only from the historically high 1980 figures.

▪ An officer in the Pskov division did not deny the higher figures.

▪ The higher figure kicks in if growth reaches 17. 5 percent annually.

key

▪ Kernaghan has been Boro's most consistent defender and a key figure in the Second Division promotion drive.

▪ The ruling brings together key figures in two other notorious Los Angeles criminal cases.

▪ Lucia Walker is one of the key figures in the development of contact improvisation in this country.

▪ Winter had wanted to introduce a budgetary control system based on monthly management accounts with the emphasis on key figures.

▪ He is alleged to have been a key figure in virtually all aspects of the Guinness affair.

▪ The key figure here is the number of seeks per access.

▪ Beanpole striker Andy Smith has emerged as one of the key figures in the Diamonds' recent revival.

leading

▪ What were the attitudes of the two leading figures?

▪ In January, too, the leading figures of the Conservative party met at Selsdon in order to hammer out new policies.

▪ Other leading figures in the party are also unlikely class warriors.

▪ Both seem sure to be leading figures again.

▪ A leading figure in the Arab world, sure that the Third World should not align itself with either superpower.

▪ He edited the school magazine and was a leading figure on the school's workers' council.

low

▪ They do not tell us why the level is set at its current average rather than some much higher or lower figure.

▪ We have calculated the West Palm Beach rate at a lower figure: $ 26. 75 a square foot.

▪ The slightly lower figure may relate to the more discursive nature of the subject.

▪ That might boost the take up into the low six figures.

▪ Leland's insistence on excellence meant production slowed to 400 cars per month - far too low a figure to be profitable.

▪ The 1990 appraisal at the lower figure reflected the sharp downturn of the Phoenix real-estate market.

▪ This equals the comparative cost and again the lowest figure represents the best value.

▪ Oil companies yesterday declared a gasoline price war, which should be reflected in lower inflation figures in future months.

official

▪ The official figure for the whole of June was 42 police and demonstrators killed; some foreign observers estimated up to 70 deaths.

▪ In April the notoriously unreliable official figure for the state's unemployment rate dropped for the second month running - to 8.6%.

▪ Campaigners say official accident figures don't give the true picture.

▪ According to the official figures, in 1984, 1 million women were registered unemployed, compared with 2.3 million men.

▪ Thirdly, even within a particular denomination, the official figures may not be strictly comparable over time.

▪ Latest official figures show that shoppers are even turning to credit again, to buy presents and stock up for Christmas.

▪ The latest official figures show a big rise in the amount of money in the economy.

▪ And that's official according to recent figures from the National Health Survey.

political

▪ Outside the Cabinet the rejected Mr Heath became an even more isolated political figure.

▪ The political figure who has tried the hardest to harness this newfound enthusiasm is Pat Robertson.

▪ How could a Prime Minister who gave voice to such sentiments be regarded as a political figure in his own right?

▪ Never in recent history has there been a political figure as vexing within his own party as President Clinton.

▪ His legal responsibilities for issues such as extradition have also brought him into contact with senior legal and political figures in Ireland.

▪ He is arguably the third most powerful political figure in the state, after Gov.

▪ Owen had an international reputation and close connections with political figures, but even he was subordinate to the principal librarian.

▪ Until relatively recently, organized religion has left environmental protection to environmental activists, concerned scientists and political figures.

public

▪ This was a tumultuous time, when many public figures came under political scrutiny.

▪ The Gingrich investigation is hardly the first time Cole has taken on highly placed public figures.

▪ Peter Allis has turned golf into a kind of harmless interview where public figures hit a few shots and chat about themselves.

▪ None of what has been said suggests that we should ignore ethical lapses or law-breaking by public figures.

▪ Point out that this is an extremely undemocratic and élitist attitude, particularly if it comes from public figures.

▪ The monarchists and conservatives claimed that all national and public figures and their acts should always be subject to scrutiny and criticism.

▪ Morrissey deliberately used his high profile to construct a public figure of some importance.

senior

▪ The Government refuses to hold a national poll despite pressure from its own backbenchers and senior party figures.

▪ The check-in clerk fell into a deep discussion with a nearby senior figure.

▪ Their membership included key ministers, the President of the Assembly, Tudjman's personal advisers and senior military figures.

▪ However, senior government figures say that Mr Mandelson's handling of the issue has damaged their faith in his political judgment.

▪ Many of its senior figures are his former employees and friends.

▪ There were also senior figures from the World Bank, the United Nations and other international organisations.

▪ Both Mercedes and Auto Union sent senior figures to the London funeral and the flowers started to arrive.

shadowy

▪ And then, for some reason, she thought of Miranda and the shadowy figure of Terence Patch.

▪ The best Rather could do was enthuse about shadowy figures in crowds who might or might not be somebody guilty of something.

▪ In all these transactions Balbinder seemed a shadowy figure.

▪ Following a brief but noisy scuffle, the window banged open and a shadowy figure burst through.

▪ To the right, open double doors hinted at shadowy figures.

▪ The veteran police officer had spotted a shadowy figure on the second floor of the complex.

▪ As his consciousness slipped away from him, he was aware of a shadowy figure appearing from the mist and standing over him.

▪ She sat down, then looked up to see the shadowy figure of the woman at the bar standing over her.

single

▪ But there are seven male to every one female tenured academic psychologist, and women heads of department are in single figures.

▪ Amid the not of splashing kids and teachers' voices, she and the child made a single still figure.

▪ Then, just before dusk a single figure was spotted again moving out of sight on the small col below the second pinnacle.

▪ It is wise not to talk about a single figure; discuss a range of figures.

▪ The Sergeant's torch played on a single figure ten yards away.

▪ By this, presumably, was meant the isolation of single figures in sequential positions like a Muybridge series in three dimensions.

▪ The birds are mostly static, and still shown in profile - a single figure on each page with no background.

▪ The two figures are a single figure.

tall

▪ The tall lanky figure of Billy Tolboys was slouched in the comer seat by the fire.

▪ A tall figure appeared in the canyon gloom; it had an enormous head.

▪ You barricaded your door against its tall figure.

▪ A tall figure came into view, then just as quickly vanished.

▪ A tall, dark figure in the shadows, leaning against the bole.

▪ Away below, a tall figure moved slowly through the trees of the demesne.

▪ Theo saw an exceptionally tall figure.

▪ Glancing in, he saw a tall, flustered figure turning away in disgust from the counter.

■ NOUN

authority

▪ It would seem that we are far more likely to obey unquestioningly when the authority figure is actually present.

▪ Disrespect the authority figure out there on the field and then wonder why the kids do it in their classrooms.

▪ The more status you give to a large number of authority figures, the more, relatively, you diminish your own.

▪ Has difficulty taking directions from authority figures? 4.

▪ As we get older, we may be abused by other authority figures - teachers, doctors, bosses.

▪ One wonders what is the unspoken view of the other authority figures involved in setting this up?

▪ Tour operators have been licensed to sell 14.3 million holidays in the coming year, Civil Aviation Authority figures reveal.

▪ It was their word against a powerful authority figure, and they thought no one would believe them.

father

▪ Morrissey and Marr looked down like father figures.

▪ His surrogate father figure was killed.

▪ He spoke seldom, but he was never impatient with her, always kind, a companionable father figure.

▪ And one of the sturdiest of these is the father figure in the sky.

▪ And he registers genuine hurt at the fact that Buzzy regards Buck as more of a father figure than himself.

▪ With Diana out of the picture, Charles is emerging as a fitting father figure.

▪ Sondheim found a mentor, if not a father figure, in Hammerstein, Patinkin said.

trade

▪ Sydney fell by 2.4% after the release of worse-than-expected trade figures for March.

▪ Yesterday's trade figures showed clearly that export volumes were at record levels even in a worldwide economic downturn.

▪ United States trade figures for the second quarter of 1971 showed a deficit for the first time.

▪ Yesterday sterling enjoyed its first quiet day since the trade figures were released a week ago.

▪ Wall Street ignored January's poor trade figures, rising 2.4%.

▪ Get as many as you can for the trade figures.

▪ September trade figures, due on 24 October, are thought critical for sterling's fortunes.

▪ Pound sags as fears grow on October trade figures.

unemployment

▪ The monthly publication of the unemployment figures provides a depressing barometer of the dole queue.

▪ But the long recession, together with high unemployment figures and a stagnant housing market, has changed homeowners' perceptions.

▪ In 1979, he said, the incoming government had felt the unemployment figures were too high.

▪ Nationwide, unemployment figures went up by 41,000, making the total 2,908,900 million.

▪ That tightening-up process is still going on, and is likely to dampen the rise in the unemployment figures.

▪ Mr. Kinnock For 2.6 million of our fellow citizens the unemployment figures are not disappointing - they are absolutely devastating.

▪ What effect would that policy have on the unemployment figures?

■ VERB

show

▪ The table is now sorted in descending order according to the Amount field, as shown in figure 11. 5.

▪ In Figure 2.7 two alternative average cost curves are shown.

▪ The type of neuron found in the retina is shown in figure 4. 2 as an example.

▪ An example of this option is shown in figure 11.13.

▪ Module Header A description follows of a typical module header, as shown in figure 2.1.

PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES

a ball-park figure/estimate/amount

a fine figure of a man/woman

an outside figure/estimate etc

authority figure

▪ As we get older, we may be abused by other authority figures - teachers, doctors, bosses.

▪ Disrespect the authority figure out there on the field and then wonder why the kids do it in their classrooms.

▪ From the beginning Jones worked to destroy his followers' confidence in any of the old authority figures in their lives.

▪ Has difficulty taking directions from authority figures? 4.

▪ It was their word against a powerful authority figure, and they thought no one would believe them.

▪ It would seem that we are far more likely to obey unquestioningly when the authority figure is actually present.

▪ One wonders what is the unspoken view of the other authority figures involved in setting this up?

▪ The more status you give to a large number of authority figures, the more, relatively, you diminish your own.

comparative figures/data

▪ Comparative figures Prior year comparative figures have been restated to conform to the current year's presentation where appropriate.

▪ I do not want the comparative figures to be distorted.

▪ Inspection of the comparative figures is both instructive and startling.

▪ Significance levels for comparative data were determined by the Wilcoxon signed rank test.

▪ The comparative figures for 1991 were 25 and 19 respectively.

▪ The comparative figures one year later of 14% and 10.9% are still worrying.

▪ The most reliable of these comparative data measure voting in national elections.

▪ Whichever option societies take, comparative figures for the new disclosures will be required.

cult film/band/figure etc

▪ Brad Pitt in the cult film Fight Club was a fraudulent soap salesman.

▪ He became a cult figure in which notions of salvation by innocent suffering have a place.

▪ He is loved to the point of becoming a cult figure.

▪ He often introduces himself to boomer types as the B-string lyricist for that perennial underground cult band, the Grateful Dead.

▪ Healing spas were based on a local cult figure and the devotees underwent rituals which included bathing and communal eating.

▪ I start by telling him that he's quite the cult figure here in Annapolis, and he looks stunned.

▪ This, however, did not prevent him from becoming a cult figure among some of the Jacobins and other revolutionaries.

▪ Vanessa Nygaard is a cult figure waiting to happen, a gale-force personality blowing through Maples Pavilion.

cut a fine/strange etc figure

facts and figures

▪ The report contained some interesting facts and figures about the Saturn Corporation.

▪ He doesn't need to remember facts and figures, he actually sees the things and people of his cover-story life.

▪ He is notoriously tough on staff, often challenging them on facts and figures during council meetings.

▪ He learned how to boom out facts and figures to the city council members that they were unable to refute.

▪ It is not easy to make sense of the maze of facts and figures concerning the settlements.

▪ Most of the ones I run into need facts and figures.

▪ Stripped to their essentials his facts and figures are astonishing.

▪ These facts and figures added relatively little to what was already known in outline.

▪ When she left I quickly immersed myself in the safer, less emotional facts and figures of a real estate deal.

have a (good) head for figures/facts/business etc

hourglass figure

▪ Instead of having an hourglass figure, whose curves suggested motherhood and domesticity, she was boyishly slim.

matchstick men/figures

▪ More like troubled at mill Salford says there's more to its patron saint than pictures of matchstick men.

six figures/digits

▪ But that must mean that the estate might run well into six figures.

▪ Each new compound synthesised was simply given a number, sometimes up to six figures long.

▪ Here are guys making six figures.

▪ Landsness obtained a settlement that he said exceeded six figures.

▪ Minutes later, a small group of six figures emerged from the woods.

▪ Movie rights have been sold, and Vintage Books just paid six figures to publish the paperback.

▪ That might boost the take up into the low six figures.

▪ The five-year deal is estimated at six figures.

sympathetic figure/character

▪ But now he, or she, needs to be an even broader, more sympathetic figure than before.

▪ Charles didn't find many sympathetic characters among the cast.

▪ The reader zooms through the story hoping for a resolution that will satisfy the mystery without sacrificing any of the sympathetic characters.

EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES

▪ ""We need $30,000 to get the project started.'' ""How close are you to that figure?''

▪ a figure in a red robe

▪ A comparison of the two figures shows the estimated profit on investment.

▪ a rare 16th century Japanese figure

▪ Add up that row of figures, and transfer the full amount to the top of the next page.

▪ Ali was one of the great sports figures of this century.

▪ Caroline really has a terrific figure.

▪ Dark figures emerged from the building, and disappeared into the night.

▪ Exercise and a sensible diet will help you get your figure back after having a baby.

▪ Freddy's bent figure limped in front of him.

▪ Government figures published today show that unemployment is rising again.

▪ He offered to buy the team for the figure of $140 million.

▪ I saw the figure of a woman below the bridge.

▪ Inflation in Japan is around 3%, while the German figure is now over 4%.

▪ Ohio's employment figures for December are not available.

▪ On a cheque, write the amount in words and in figures.

▪ Retailers are reporting their November sales figures today.

▪ sales figures

▪ She eats enormous meals but still manages to keep her figure.

▪ Susie wore a close-fitting black dress which made the most of her figure.

EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS

▪ But for the writers and early translators of the Gospels, it was a very precise term, denoting a very exact figure.

▪ By the age of retirement that figure will increase to one in every five.

▪ Now, the. 78 figure might seem pretty good if one did not know two crucial facts about the study.

▪ She turned slowly and looked at the figure in the chair.

▪ That means a commitment to every figure in it, a commitment to taking a risk to achieve the budgeted outputs.

▪ The figures were recently released by the magazine.

▪ The Gingrich investigation is hardly the first time Cole has taken on highly placed public figures.

▪ The motionless figures ap-peared determined still to make the leap to the playground.

II.verb

COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS

■ ADVERB

largely

▪ At Sussex University, he met Gail Rebuck, who would figure largely in his life for the next twenty years.

▪ The railway system continued to figure largely in high political planning in 1922.

▪ The name of Carl August of Saxe-Weimar figured largely, but I had heard neither of him nor of it.

▪ Britten's accompaniments have figured largely in our discussion.

▪ Machinery figured largely in Cumbria and Wester Ross reflecting no doubt the distance from repair facilities.

out

▪ Also, I've figured out what Wilko's doing with Rocky.

▪ Whenever my sons, John, and I eat out together, Miles and Evan always figure out the bill.

▪ Dazedly I got back into bed and tried to figure out what had happened.

▪ The prosecutors want to figure out what we are looking for.

▪ Keith can not figure out why Potter looks so funny.

▪ Clearly, one advantage of public-key cryptography is that no one can figure out the private key from the corresponding public key.

▪ Hippix is Hippo's first product and it is currently trying to figure out its target market.

▪ She can learn to observe herself, figuring out what she does easily and what takes more work.

prominently

▪ The condition should figure prominently in undergraduate clinical training and in medical textbooks.

▪ But this group are the bedrock of the institution - and as such should figure prominently in our prayers.

▪ They were to figure prominently among the more tragic case histories.

▪ Claims and counter-claims of this kind were to figure prominently for generations in Ottoman-Habsburg negotiations.

▪ Lords, ladies, dukes and duchesses figure prominently among the names as well as more ordinary mortals of obviously substantial means.

■ NOUN

way

▪ Maybe he figured the only way to get her off his back was to confess.

▪ A new state law says they have to figure out a way to recycle it.

▪ Have we ever figured out a rational way to explain and triage which drugs should be banned for which reasons?

▪ Every society must figure out ways to bring them into the disciplines and duties of citizenship.

▪ They decided we owned more land than we needed, and they figured out a way to get it.

▪ Many defiant children are also unusually clever; figuring out ways to defeat your most sophisticated arguments.

▪ They figured out a way to trick him.

▪ So Knapman, an indigent, is stuck at the hospital trying to figure a way out of the mess.

ways

▪ Every society must figure out ways to bring them into the disciplines and duties of citizenship.

▪ Many defiant children are also unusually clever; figuring out ways to defeat your most sophisticated arguments.

▪ She moved from being easily overwhelmed and cautious to figuring out ways both to calm herself and to master new experiences.

▪ The Republicans have hired consultants to figure out ways to appeal to those women not already turned off.

▪ One of the tasks facing all freshmen is to figure out ways to counter this loneliness.

▪ Heloise has figured out little ways to cut back on calories, she says.

■ VERB

try

▪ Connelly blinked myopically, trying to clear his gaze, trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

▪ He was trying to figure out how bad it was going to be.

▪ I tried to figure him out; he was by no means the worst of the bunch.

▪ He went on talking while I tried to figure out what it meant.

▪ So they're up there in the cashiers' office trying to figure out where all the money's coming from.

▪ I read books, trying to figure it out.

▪ That's what I do when I get worried - I try to figure it out.

▪ I fiddle at my computer for a while, trying to figure out what to say.