figure

figure, in music, short melodic or rhythmic pattern, the smallest grouping of notes that will produce a single distinct impression. In this sense figure is synonymous with motive. In music before the 18th cent., a figure had an additional meaning of symbolic significance; it was an illustration in sound of textual details, e.g., a descending group of notes for any word expressing descent. As such, it was part of musical rhetoric.

Type of Greek pottery that flourished from the late 6th to the late 4th century BC. Developed in Athens circa 530 BC, the red-figure pottery quickly overtook the older black-figure pottery as the preferred style of vase painting. In red-figure technique, the background was painted black, and the outline details on the figures were also painted (rather than incised) in black, but the rest of each figure was unpainted and so retained the orange-red colour of the natural vase. By comparison with incising, the painting of the details allowed more flexibility in rendering human form, movements, expressions, and perspective. Since most of the ornamentation was narrative, such technical advantages were of utmost importance.

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Small wooden statue of uncertain religious significance, carved on Easter Island. The figures, thought to represent ancestors who live on in the form of skeletons, are of two types: moai kavakava (male), with a beaklike nose and goatee and occasionally an animal or a human figure incised on the head; and moai paepae (female), which have a flat, relieflike quality and large eyes. They were sometimes used for fertility rites but more often for harvest celebrations, when the first picking of fruits was heaped around them as offerings.

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Sport in which ice skaters, singly or in pairs, perform various jumps, spins, and footwork. The figure skate blade has a special serrated toe pick, or toe rake, at the front. Figure-skating events, held in the 1908 and 1920 Olympic Games, have constituted part of the Winter Olympics since they were inaugurated in 1924. Until 1991, competition included a compulsory section in which prescribed figures were traced. Competition for individuals includes two free-skating programs: a short program with mandatory requirements and a long program designed to show the skater's skill and grace. Jumps fall into two main groups: the edge jumps (such as the axel, the salchow, and the loop), which take off from one foot; and the toe jumps (such as the toe loop, the flip, and the lutz), which are edge jumps assisted by a vault off the toe pick of the other foot. Additional pair moves, involving a man and a woman skating together, include lifts and throw jumps. Figure-skating programs are judged on both technical merit and artistic impression. Seealso ice dancing.

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Form of expression used to convey meaning or heighten effect, often by comparing or identifying one thing with another that has a meaning or connotation familiar to the reader or listener. An integral part of language, figures of speech are found in oral literatures as well as in polished poetry and prose and in everyday speech. Common figures of speech include simile, metaphor, personification, hyperbole, irony, alliteration, onomatopoeia, and puns.

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Type of Greek pottery that originated in Corinth circa 700 BC. The figures were painted in black pigment on the natural red clay ground. Finishing details were then incised into the black pigment, revealing the red ground. The great Attic painters (mid 6th century BC), most notably Exekias, developed narrative scene decoration and perfected the style. It continued to be popular until the advent of red-figure pottery (circa 530 BC).

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The figure-of-eight knot is a type of knot. It is very important in both sailing and rock climbing as a method of stopping ropes from running out of retaining devices.

Different types of figure-of-eight knots:

• Double figure-of-eight knot, (figure-of-eight loop): used like an overhand loop knot. This type of knot can be used in prusik climbing when used in conjunction with a Swiss seat, a climbing rope, and locking carabiner designed for climbing, to ascend or descend with minimal equipment and effort.
• Figure-of-eight splice knot: used to quickly and effectively splice two ropes of equal, or unequal diameter together. This knot consists of a loose figure-of-eight knot made in one rope, and feeding the lesser diameter of the two back through the figure-of-eight starting from the original knot's running end and retracing the rope through the figure-of-eight until the second ropes running end is parallel with the first's ropes standing end, essentially creating a figure-of-eight within a figure-of-eight. This can be a permanent or temporary approach to splicing ropes together and the anatomy of this knot allows two ropes to be spliced without slipping, however, it causes strength loss as with most knots. A blood knot is a better knot for rope splicing, but is more difficult to achieve.

See also

• Figure-eight knot (mathematics)
• List of knots

External links

• Grog's Animated Knots: How to tie the figure of eight knot