If love, alas! be pain I bear,
No thought can figure, and no tongue declare.Prior.
2. To embellish with design; to adorn with figures.
The vaulty top of heaven Figured quite o'er with
burning meteors. --Shak.
3. To indicate by numerals; also, to compute.
As through a crystal glass the figured hours are
seen. --Dryden.
4. To represent by a metaphor; to signify or symbolize.
Whose white vestments figure innocence. --Shak.
In this the heaven figures some event. --Shak.
6. (Mus.)
(a) To write over or under the bass, as figures or other
characters, in order to indicate the accompanying
chords.
(b) To embellish.
{To figure out}, to solve; to compute or find the result of.
{To figure up}, to add; to reckon; to compute the amount of.