STATUE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does statue mean? 

• STATUE (noun)
  The noun STATUE has 1 sense:

1. a sculpture representing a human or animal

  Familiarity information: STATUE used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• STATUE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A sculpture representing a human or animal

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("statue" is a kind of...):

sculpture (a three-dimensional work of plastic art)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "statue"):

herm (a statue consisting of a squared stone pillar with a carved head (usually a bearded Hermes) on top; used in ancient Greece as a boundary marker or signpost)

nude; nude sculpture; nude statue (a statue of a naked human figure)

Olympian Zeus (a seated statue of the supreme god of ancient Greek mythology created for the temple at Olympia; the statue was 40 feet tall and rested on a base that was 12 feet high)

sphinx (one of a number of large stone statues with the body of a lion and the head of a man that were built by the ancient Egyptians)

term; terminal figure; terminus ((architecture) a statue or a human bust or an animal carved out of the top of a square pillar; originally used as a boundary marker in ancient Rome)

Instance hyponyms:

Colossus of Rhodes (a huge bronze statue of the sun god Helios that was built around 285 BC and that stood beside the harbor entrance on the island of Rhodes for about 50 years before it was toppled by an earthquake)

Statue of Liberty (a large monumental statue symbolizing liberty on Liberty Island in New York Bay)

Derivation:

statuary (of or relating to or suitable for statues)

statuette (a small carved or molded figure)

 Context examples 

Who did I get the statues from?

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He went on as a statue would, that is, he neither spoke nor moved.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

The study examined 93 statues on the western side of the island, all of which were built before contact with Europeans.

(Scientists report correlation between locations of Easter Island statues and water resources, Wikinews)

Then he let himself go and sank without movement, a white statue, into the sea.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Then, folding his arms once more, he stood like a beautiful statue waiting for his antagonist.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He stood like a statue till the danger was past, when he yielded to a fit of trembling and sank down into the wet moss.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

The unknown knight had sat like a statue of steel, looking neither to the right nor to the left during these preliminaries.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He made no motion of stepping to meet me, but stood like a statue, as though his gesture of welcome had fixed him into stone.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

There is the evidence of two frightened women that it perched upon the roof of the Queen's Hall and remained there like a diabolical statue for some hours.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I saw her stand where he had left her, like a statue; and then bend down her head, and clasp her hands, and weep, I cannot say how sorrowfully.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)