dummy
n. countablen. a person who is not very smart, or an object that looks like a person. You might use a plastic dummy to show clothes in a shop window.
n. an inanimate model of the human figure, or a person perceived as lacking intelligence. Often refers to a physical mannequin or a placeholder object used in testing or display.
The shop window has a dummy wearing a red coat.
The engineers used a crash-test dummy to see how the car would handle a collision.
While the critics dismissed him as a mere dummy for the political party's interests, he eventually proved to have a sophisticated agenda of his own.
From dumb + -y. Pacifier sense from dummy teat where dummy is in the sense of a nonfunctional replica.
Informal when referring to a person; neutral when referring to a mannequin or placeholder.