figuration

English

Etymology

Late Middle English figuracion, from Middle French figuration, from Latin figūrō (“to form”). Equivalent to figurate +‎ -ion.

Pronunciation

• enPR: fĭg'-yə-rāʹ-shən, fĭg'-ə-rāʹ-shən, IPA^(key): /ˌfɪɡ.jəˈɹeɪ.ʃən/, /ˌfɪɡ.əˈɹeɪ.ʃən/
• Hyphenation: fig‧ur‧a‧tion
• Rhymes: -eɪʃən

Noun

figuration (countable and uncountable, plural figurations)

1. The act of giving figure or determinate form.
2. Form, outline or boundaries.
3. Ornamentation or decoration, especially by the addition of figures.
   • 2001, Stephen Fox, Rice University: An Architectural Tour, page 204:

     […] a shift to modernist building typologies in the early 1950s led to the abandonment of symmetry, centrality, and figuration. Since the 1980s, big-box typologies, frosted with postmodern architectural veneer, have dominated.

4. Mixture of concords and discords.
   • 1997, John Rink, Chopin: The Piano Concertos‎, page 75:

     Here and throughout, variation infuses the music, Chopin’s innovative, elastic figuration masking the underlying similarity of bars 23 and 25.

5. (art) Representation through visual forms.
   • 1986, Frank Stella, Working Space, page 74:

     To recapitulate: consider the human form—skin, bone, and flesh. Consider the painting—surface, structure, and pigment. With a little license, the first gives us the ingredients for what might be called human or “figurative” figuration; the second gives us the ingredients for abstract or “nonfigurative” figuration.

6. (sociology) A structure through which people are joined, or the process of constructing such structures.
   • 2006, Grant Jarvie, Sport, Culture, and Society‎, page 26:

     Figurations of interdependent people make up many webs of interdependence, which are characterized in part by different balances of power of many sorts, such as families, states, towns or simply groups.

Derived terms

• figurational

Anagrams

• autofiring

French

Pronunciation

• Audio:

  (file)

Noun

figuration f (plural figurations)

1. (theater, film) cast of extras
2. Taking a back seat
3. figuration

Further reading

• “figuration”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.