figure sb. (3 referred by some to the sense ‘horoscope, diagram of the aspects of astrological houses’)
1.
distinctive shape or appearance
Ado I. i. 15
“doing in the figure of
a lamb the feats of a lion.”
2.
imaginary form,
phantasm
Wiv. IV. ii. 234
“to scrape the f-s out
of your husband's brains,”
Cæs. II. i. 231
“no figures nor no
fantasies.”
3.
(?) effigy Wiv. IV. ii. 189*
“She works . . . by the
figure” (?=operates on a wax effigy of a
person, for the purpose of enchantment).
4.
represented
character, part enacted
Tp. III. iii. 83
“Bravely the of this
harpy hast thou Perform'”
5.
written character
Tim. V. i. 159
“shall . . . write in
thee the f-s of their love,”
V. iii. 7, Oth. I. i. 62.
6.
any of the various
rhetorical forms of expression, which are adopted in
order to give beauty, variety, or force Gent. II. i. 156, LLL. I. ii. 59, V. i. 68, Shr. I. ii. 115, Ham. II. ii. 98.
