Other forms: figureheads
A figurehead is the carved figure once fixed under a ship's bow. A wooden figurehead, the ship's figurehead, a mere figurehead.
The figurative sense is now much the commoner: a figurehead is somebody at the front of an organisation with no real power, which is exactly what the carving was — decorative, prominent and steering nothing.
1nounfigureheadThe carved figure once fixed under a ship's bow.
“The painted figurehead of a mermaid gazed out over the waves from the front of the old ship.”
figurehead is a carving, or a leader.
Figure plus head, from the eighteenth century, when such carvings were standard on ships.
From figure + head.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA