Wikipedia
A gisant ( French, “recumbent”) is a recumbent effigy on a tomb depicting a prominent deceased person in the process of dying or as a corpse. Such compositions, developed in western Europe in late medieval, Renaissance, and early moderns times, may represent the deceased in a state of “eternal repose”, hands folded in prayer and awaiting resurrection. A husband and wife may be depicted together. An important official or leader may be shown holding his attributes of office or dressed in the formal attire of his official status or social class.
Some of the best-known examples of the form are in Westminster Abbey in London, Saint Peter's in Rome, Santi Giovanni e Paolo, Venice (twenty-five Doges), and the Basilica of Santa Croce, Florence.
Usage examples of "gisant".
When Ramachandra casually pulled the cover aside, Sorokin saw that the stone was carved in the form of a gisant, a larger-than-life mortuary sculpture.
As Sorokin watched, the gisant accelerated in its downward passage, a doomed ship sinking into water.
Shortly afterward he caught sight of the gisant moving ahead of him through blue-white space, gliding in the direction from which the transverse bands of light seemed to flow.
A few paces away, the gisant drifted almost buoyantly, only one corner of it dragging along the mirror surface of the star that was a neutron solid with billions of times the rigidity of steel.