Other forms: ventriloquists
A ventriloquist is a performer who makes a dummy seem to speak. A ventriloquist act, the ventriloquist's dummy, work as a ventriloquist.
The trick is in the audience rather than the mouth: people place a voice by watching, so if the dummy moves and the performer does not, the sound seems to come from the dummy. The hard letters are b, m and p, which need the lips.
1nounventriloquistA performer who makes a dummy seem to speak.
“The ventriloquist sat the wooden doll on his knee, and it seemed to start talking.”
ventriloquist is a performer.
From ventriloquy + -ist.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA