percumbent figure
- noun
- /pərˈkʌmbənt ˈfɪɡjər/
- Archaic
:
figura yacente
- In the cathedral, a marble percumbent figure adorned the tomb of the nobleman.
Examples
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The artist painted a percumbent figure resting peacefully beneath the tree.
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In the museum, we saw several percumbent figures from ancient sculptures.
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Critics noted the emotional depth of the percumbent figure in her sculptures.
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The artist painted a beautiful percumbent figure in the landscape.
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In the cathedral, a marble percumbent figure adorned the tomb of the nobleman.
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Critics noted the emotional depth of the percumbent figure in her sculptures.
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The artist painted a percumbent figure resting peacefully beneath the tree.
Synonyms
Lying flat, like a figure shown on a tomb or statue
Surface Forms
Morphology
percumbent + figure
The phrase is directly compositional: an adjective meaning 'lying down/reclining' plus 'figure' yields 'a figure that is lying down'. This follows a regular adjective+noun pattern found across languages, so a B1 learner who knows the constituent meanings would readily infer the MWE meaning (noting that the adjective itself is rare, which affects familiarity but not compositional transparency).
Etymology
Percumbent figure comes from old art language for a person shown lying down, like a statue stretched across a tomb. The part percumbent comes from old words meaning 'to lie down' and figure means a person's shape, so the image of someone lying explains why it means 'a figure represented as lying down' in art.
