Dummy

How to spell dummy

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce dummy

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does dummy mean?

1. nounA model or imitation of something, used as a stand-in for the real object.
2. adjectiveMade to look real but having no genuine function; fake or imitation.
3. nounA rubber or silicone teat given to a baby to suck on for comfort.

Dummy in a sentence

• noun

  The shop arranged the new coats on a tailor's dummy in the window.

• adjective

  The bank installed a dummy alarm box on the wall to deter thieves.

• noun

  The baby would not settle until she found his dummy under the cot.

• noun

  Crash testers strapped a weighted dummy into the driver's seat.

• adjective

  Engineers ran the rehearsal with a dummy payload rather than the real cargo.

• noun

  She packed a spare dummy in the changing bag in case the first was dropped.

Where does dummy come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word grew directly out of the English adjective 'dumb', which comes from Old English 'dumb' meaning 'mute' or 'unable to speak', a word shared across the Germanic languages. By the late 1500s 'dummy' was being used for a person who could not or would not speak, and from there it broadened to mean a silent stand-in or a substitute that only looks like the real thing. In card games of the 1700s the 'dummy' was the exposed hand played as if by an absent partner, and tailors and shop-fitters later adopted it for the lifeless figure used to display clothes. The familiar British sense of an infant's soothing teat appeared because the object pacifies a baby into silence, echoing that original 'mute' idea. The spelling trap is the doubled 'm', inherited from 'dumb' but written without the silent 'b' once the suffix is attached.

How the word is built

• dumb (mute, unable to speak)
• -y (noun/adjective suffix)