a jointed model of the human body, usually of wood, from which artists work in the absence of a living model.
2.
a similar figure used in shops to display costumes.
3.
a person of no importance, individuality, distinction, etc.; nonentity.
Origin: 1785–95; lay, extracted from obs. layman < D leeman, var. of ledenman, equiv. to leden- (combining form of lid limb, c. OE, ME lith) + manman1)
[From obsolete layman, from Dutch leeman, variant of ledenman : obsolete Dutch led, limb (from Middle Dutch lit) + man, man (from Middle Dutch; see manikin).]
man·ne·quin (mān'ĭ-kĭn) n.
A life-size full or partial representation of the human body, used for the fitting or displaying of clothes; a dummy.
A jointed model of the human body used by artists, especially to demonstrate the arrangement of drapery. Also called lay figure.
One who models clothes; a model.
[French, from Old French, little man, figurine, from Middle Dutch mannekijn; see manikin.]
Word History: A department store mannequin is often not a man and often not little, yet mannequin goes back to the Middle Dutch word mannekijn, the diminutive form of man, "man, person." As for the size of a mannequin, the Middle Dutch word could mean "dwarf" but in Modern Dutch developed the specialized sense of "an artist's jointed model." This was the sense in which we adopted the word (first recorded in 1570), making it another term like easel and landscape taken over from the terminology of Dutch painters of the time. The word borrowed from Dutch now has the form manikin. We later adopted the French version of the Dutch word as well, giving English mannequin, and this is now the form most commonly encountered and the one commonly used for a department store dummy as well as a live model.
(mān'ĭ-kĭn) 