1A three-dimensional representation of a person or thing or of a proposed structure, typically on a smaller scale than the original.

1. 1.1 (in sculpture) a figure or object made in clay or wax, to be reproduced in another more durable material.
   wax models were used by sculptors in the lost wax method of bronze casting

   Example sentencesExamples

   • A principal use of wax in sculpture is as an auxiliary material, either for preliminary sketches or for making models to be reproduced in metal.
   • In the past, this would have meant having a sculptor create a clay model from the drawings.
   • However, given the sculptural effect Leonardo sought to produce in these finished drawings, one wonders to what extent he may have copied from wax or plaster models of flayed limbs.
   • Her sculptures begin life as straw and plaster models before they are cast.
   • The manner in which the leg is cut off at the groin in some of these drawings recalls the ecorche wax models of legs formerly attributed to Michelangelo in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
   • Work on the statue required a total of two years, with eight months devoted to sculpting the clay model.
   • The sculpture models were all cast after his death.
   • For thousands of years, in fact, foundry workers have made bronze castings of clay models made by sculptors.
   • Quinn sent resin body casts of the subjects to Italy where they were used as models by stone craftsmen who hand-carved the sculptures in editions of three.
   • Several large sculptures, as well as models, are on view.

   Synonyms

   replica, copy, representation, mock-up, dummy, imitation, double, duplicate, lookalike, reproduction

2A thing used as an example to follow or imitate.

1. 2.1 A person or thing regarded as an excellent example of a specified quality.
   as she grew older, she became a model of self-control

   as modifier he was a model husband and father

   Example sentencesExamples

   • The hospice model of care is now espoused as a model of excellence and has led to a worldwide hospice movement aspiring to deliver high quality care to dying patients.
   • But he always seemed to me to be a model of what a Christian penitent should be and I was always grateful for him.
   • The merger stood out as a model of discipline among the industry's increasingly expensive couplings.
   • He agrees that his failure to respond is not a model of perfection.
   • He was neither influential on policy, a significant thinker on Germany, or a model of the freedom-is-truth ideal he propounded.
   • The book makes for an excellent history of a major corporation and a model of organization for coverage of a complex topic.
   • The late cardinal was a model of sanctity for today's Christians.
   • It was baffling, he suggested, that a country so stained by a history of slavery and brutal segregation should dare think itself a model of purity.
   • Up to the age of 11, my childhood has been a model of textbook perfection.
   • Solomon, for example, is held up as a model of wisdom, even though he eventually becomes as corrupted as other kings.
   • He is a model of patience and an example of how to listen without making moral judgments or instant evaluations.
   • As a piece of curatorial work, the two shows are a model of excellence.
   • The hypocrite is a good example for other people, a model of probity and decorum, at least until the truth comes out.
   • I think in many ways it has been a model of executive-legislative relations.
   • That's when I first started trying so hard, pushing myself to be such a model of perfection.
   • Her book is an excellent study of the early modern professions and a model of insightful historical research.
   • Its inquiry has been a model of its kind, an example of how parties can work together and parliament with the Executive.
   • A Jewish king was supposed to be a model of what an ideal Jew is all about - a figurehead for the rest of the nation to emulate.
   • Guy looked like an ancient Greek statue come to life, for he was a model of physical perfection.
   • An initiative to provide low-cost affordable homes above shops in York has been praised as a model of urban regeneration by the Government.

   Synonyms

   ideal, paragon, perfect example, specimen, perfect specimen

   personification, embodiment, perfection, acme, the epitome

   French beau idéal, nonpareil, crème de la crème

   informal pick of the bunch

   ideal, perfect, exemplary, classic, flawless, faultless, consummate, impeccable
2. 2.2 An actual person or place on which a specified fictional character or location is based.
   Preston was the model for Coketown in ‘Hard Times’

   Example sentencesExamples

   • Coincidentally this same guy was the model for a character in a story I just wrote.
   • It has published its first work of fiction and folks in Miami are trying to find out the real-life models for the characters.
   • The list was eventually whittled down to just five names and from that came the choice of a model for the character.
   • The boarding school background matched his very closely, and some claim that specific models for each character are known.
   • The actual model is a homemaker and mother of two children now living in the Houston area.
3. 2.3 The plan for the reorganization of the Parliamentary army, passed by the House of Commons in 1644–5.
   See also New Model Army

3A simplified description, especially a mathematical one, of a system or process, to assist calculations and predictions.

4A person employed to display clothes by wearing them.

1. 4.1 A person employed to pose for an artist, photographer, or sculptor.
   an artist's model

   Example sentencesExamples

   • The model was posed and one of the lights blew so we had to concentrate on shadows - there was no choice.
   • Artists' models, like fashion photographers' models, are assumed to have been so far transformed as to have no personal claim on the image.
   • The character in the story cannot see that his young wife posing as a model is dying as he portrays her on the canvas.
   • Not only his most famous painting, but also several other works, appeared to be based closely on photographs of models posing in the book, which has been out of print for several years.
   • The artist demands a pose, the model complies; but once the model assumes the pose, the artist must pay attention.
   • Working with a model, the artist took photos until he was satisfied with the figure's position.
   • He posed a nude model to fix the exact posture of Salome in the water-colour version of The Apparition in the Louvre.
   • Which actor's resume includes stints as a coffin polisher, a milkman and a nude model for artists?
   • At one time, artists used live models to sketch and paint portraits.
   • Ben wanted to do some cave photography and needed a willing group of models to pose for him.
   • You may think it's always going to be interesting to look at a naked person, but many people who try to be artist's models are not very good.
   • To further help him, he also hired a photographer to take photographs of the models as they posed - and also other objects he wanted in the picture.
   • A good model should understand the artist's intention and help to realize the effect the artist wants to achieve.
   • A new sketch starts with the artist using live models for composition and fall of cloth, followed by referring to as many photographs as possible to get the detail accurate.
   • A group of artists from Bradford on Avon are holding a spring exhibition and hope to recruit new models to pose for them in the autumn.
   • Although most of the academies confined their activities to teaching and to the provision of models for artists to study a few began to offer members and friends a chance to show their recent work in public.
   • She was an artists' model, she travelled and was unmarried when she had her daughter 30 years ago.
   • I walk into a room, pick up a piece of charcoal and look at the model posing against a sofa draped in blue.
   • The model's poses, at first glance sexually provocative, are actually those used by wolves.
   • Only last year, a Royal Academy of Arts touring workshop was not allowed to employ nude models to pose for art students.

   Synonyms

   sitter, poser, subject, artist's model, photographic model

5A particular design or version of a product.

1. 5.1 A garment or a copy of a garment by a well-known designer.
   strikes have dogged the production of the models

   Synonyms

   original, original design, exclusive

   informal one-off

1Fashion or shape (a three-dimensional figure or object) in a malleable material such as clay or wax.

1. 1.1 (in drawing or painting) represent so as to appear three-dimensional.
   the body of the woman to the right is modelled in softer, riper forms

   Example sentencesExamples

   • The faces and hands of the saints are beautifully modeled, expressive, and elegant.
   • Schematically shaded at its lower and right sides, the golf ball is illusionistically modeled not in the round but in relief, as is often the case with the apples and oranges of Cezanne.
   • A handsome young man, the cheekbones and almost delicate slope of his nose are modeled with deft passages of brush.
   • Her face and arms and the background woods are heavily modeled with black.
   • Lot and His Daughters betrays the influence of Caravaggio in the heavy chiaroscuro light effects and the deftly modelled figures.
   • The indolently nude woman in the featured painting was in fact modeled by Ingres's first wife.

2model oneself onUse (a system, procedure, etc.) as an example to follow or imitate.

1. 2.1model oneself on Take (someone admired or respected) as an example to follow or imitate.
   he models himself on rock legend Elvis Presley

   Example sentencesExamples

   • So, you modelled yourself on the cartoon Simba?
   • Mass opposition to a war against a dictator who models himself on Stalin is being led by a man who is nostalgic for Stalin.
   • Another similar force for conformity is that organizations more or less model themselves on each other by copying what is considered to be best practice.
   • I grew up looking at pictures of him and modelling myself on him.
   • Rather than modelling themselves on a school or atelier, these seven artists presented themselves as a corporation, a parody of high capitalism, with logos, shares and brochures.
   • Looks are crucial in this elegant city, whose inhabitants have always modelled themselves on Europeans.
   • We were trying to play the English game, when we should have been modelling ourselves on the French, even on the Welsh.
   • And, of course, it is freely observable in daily life as we all model ourselves on what we are exposed to.
   • She models herself on Margaret Thatcher and Indira Gandhi.
   • So we can't tell how much she had read; how far she was an original, and how far she was conscious of modelling herself on earlier saints.
   • She modeled herself on, of all things, another Dame.
   • Dubai, rather short on natural resources, and long a trading hub, is more or less modeling itself on Singapore.
   • ‘We have modelled ourselves on a construction company,’ he said.
   • They cannot afford to mock the bands they model themselves on but a bit of tongue-in-cheek humour doesn't go amiss either.
   • She is not someone whom the nation's females can model themselves on.
   • He is immensely ambitious, unashamedly modelling himself on Julius Caesar.
   • In fact, young actors often model themselves on that, thinking that unacceptable behavior is okay.
   • Of all the obnoxious media-unfriendly celebrities in the world, who do model yourself on?
   • Perhaps the strangest byway is the vanished London subculture of the ‘mollies’, or gay men who modelled themselves on women and went as far as to stage mock childbirths.

   Synonyms

   imitate, copy, reproduce, mimic, mirror, echo, follow, model oneself on, take as a model, take as an example

3Devise a representation, especially a mathematical one, of (a phenomenon or system)

4Display (clothes) by wearing them.

1. 4.1no object Work as a model by displaying clothes or posing for an artist or sculptor.
   he's been modelling for just two weeks

   Example sentencesExamples

   • Saying it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience for her, she went on to answer the quizmaster's questions about modelling.
   • But my grandmother did not allow her to go into modelling.
   • Sameera would leave modelling to her sisters and declares: ‘I'm in love with the moving camera.’
   • She didn't feel like modeling any more so she pulled the new clothes off and pulled her jeans and T-shirt back on.
   • From modelling to cinema she never planned anything.
   • When she modeled in her early twenties, ‘upside-down poses, handstands and things like that were really easy, and I could hold them a long time.’
   • She doesn't blame modelling for her past sorrows, although working in an industry where physical perfection is paramount can't be the best environment for a girl with a need to be accepted.
   • Back in Scotland, she modelled for ten years and worked as a make-up artist before making the break into media.
   • Although she has done some swimsuit modelling, she has never posed nude, nor does she have any intention of doing so.
   • The sculptor may have modeled a terra-cotta bust of Anne-Marie.
   • Together, the paintings demonstrated to an international audience the range of the artist's talent and his debt to the family who modeled for him.
   • She said: ‘I have never thought about modelling - and I don't think I would, although it would be nice to do for a while.’
   • Others of us modeled without clothes on for Life Drawing classes.
   • In her 20s, she dabbled in modelling, photography and clothes design, occasionally shooting videos for America's alternative rock royalty.
   • Rising to her feet she struck a pose; playfully modeling for him.
   • I have known her since I was 17 and started modelling.
   • I also model - I'm 29 and have been modelling since I was 15.
   • Woods has said his girlfriend had done swimsuit modelling, but never posed nude.
   • Aidan struck a pose, trying to look like he was modeling.
   • Then someone suggested that I should start modelling.
   • I've modeled for several male photographers who showed me the poses they wanted by doing it themselves, and most of the time, they looked about this silly.

   Synonyms

   be a model, sit, take up a position, assume an attitude, strike a pose