Contextualizebeta

dummy

noun
/ˈdʌmi/

Etymology

From dumb + -y. Pacifier sense from dummy teat where dummy is in the sense of a nonfunctional replica.

  1. derived from dom
  2. derived from dumm
  3. inherited from *dʰewbʰ-✻
  4. inherited from *dumbaz✻
  5. inherited from *dumb✻
  6. inherited from dumb — “silent, speechless, mute, unable to speak”
  7. inherited from dumb — “silent, speechless, mute, ineffectual”
  8. suffixed as dummy — “dumb + -y”

Definitions

  1. A silent person

    A silent person; a person who does not talk.

  2. A stupid person.

    • Don't be such a dummy!

  3. A term of address.

    • Hey dummy, what's good wit chu?
  4. ›+ 15 more definitions

    1. A figure of a person or animal used by a ventriloquist

      A figure of a person or animal used by a ventriloquist; a puppet.

    2. Something constructed with the size and form of a human, to be used in place of a person.

      • To understand the effects of the accident, we dropped a dummy from the rooftop.

    3. A person who is the mere tool of another

      A person who is the mere tool of another; a man of straw.

    4. A deliberately nonfunctional device or tool used in place of a functional one.

      • The hammer and drill in the display are dummies.

    5. A pacifier

      A pacifier; a plastic or rubber teat used to soothe or comfort a baby.

      • The baby wants her dummy.
      • No Fairy baby has ever been seen to suck its thumb or to use a dummy.

    6. A player whose hand is shown and is to be played from by another player.

    7. A word serving only to make a construction grammatical.

      • The pronoun "it" in "It's a mystery why this happened" is a dummy.

    8. An unused parameter or value.

      • If flag1 is false, the other parameters are dummies.

    9. A feigned pass or kick or play in order to deceive an opponent.

    10. A bodily gesture meant to fool an opposing player

      A bodily gesture meant to fool an opposing player; a feint.

    11. A newborn animal that is indifferent to stimulus and does not voluntarily move.

      • a dummy calf, lamb, or foal

    12. A fairy chess piece that cannot move or capture, but can be captured and used to skip…

      A fairy chess piece that cannot move or capture, but can be captured and used to skip moving another piece.

      • Everybody give the dummy a big round of applause.

    13. To make a mock-up or prototype version of something, without some or all off its intended…

      To make a mock-up or prototype version of something, without some or all off its intended functionality.

      • The carpenters dummied some props for the rehearsals.

    14. To feint.

      • The more glamorous qualities usually associated with him are skill and pace and he used those to race on to a ball across him and dummy a defender before having a right-foot shot saved.
      • For the first, the 30-year-old allowed Walcott space on the right to send in a pass that was expertly dummied by Samir Nasri, allowing Van Persie to swivel and smash right-footed past Robert Green.

    15. Extremely.

      • It's dummy hot outside.

The neighborhood

Derived

beat the dummy, chuck a dummy, crash test dummy, dumminess, dummy bid, dummy bidder, dummy board, dummy car, dummy foal, dummy foal syndrome, dummy half, dummy it, dummy light, dummymander, dummy pronoun, dummy-proof, dummy run, dummy scissors, dummy spit, dummy subject, dummy text, dummy variable, dummy whist, sell the dummy, spit the dummy, tailor's dummy, test dummy, dummy out, dummy up

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for dummy. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA