manikin

Noun

manikin (plural manikins)

1. A little man (sometimes as a term of endearment).
   • This is a dear manikin to you, Sir Toby.c. 1601–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Twelfe Night, or What You Will”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
   • She was very good natur’d, and not above Forty foot high, being little for her age. She gave me the name Grildrig, which the Family took up, and afterwards the whole Kingdom. The Word imports what the Latins call Nanunculus, the Italians Homunceletino, and the English Mannikin.1727, Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels, London: Benj. Motte, Volume 1, Part II, Chapter 1, p. 31

   Synonyms:

   homunculus, midget, peewee, shorty, titman

2. A three-dimensional figure, dummy or effigy representing a man or person.
   • […] he fumbled in the pockets, and produced at length a curious little deformed image with a hunch on its back, and exactly the color of a three days’ old Congo baby. Remembering the embalmed head, at first I almost thought that this black manikin was a real baby preserved in some similar manner....1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “Chapter 3”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC
   • The window […] contains the only pleasant object in the place. This is a beautiful little miniature theatre,—that is to say, the orchestra and stage. It is fitted with charmingly painted scenery and all the appliances for scenic changes. There are tiny traps and delicately constructed “lifts,” and...1859, Fitz James O’Brien, “The Wondersmith” in The Poems and Stories of Fitz-James O’Brien, James R. Osgood & Co., 1881, reprinted by University Press: John Wilson & Son, Cambridge, 1969, pp. 179-180