Mannequin - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

A mannequin is an often articulated doll

Doll

A doll is a model of a human being, often used as a toy for children. Dolls have traditionally been used in magic and religious rituals throughout the world, and traditional dolls made of materials like clay and wood are found in the Americas, Asia, Africa and Europe. The earliest documented dolls...

used by artists, tailors, dressmakers, and others especially to display or fit clothing

Clothing

Clothing refers to any covering for the human body that is worn. The wearing of clothing is exclusively a human characteristic and is a feature of nearly all human societies...

. The term is also used for life-sized dolls with simulated airway

Airway

The pulmonary airway comprises those parts of the respiratory system through which air flows, conceptually beginning at the nose and mouth, and terminating in the alveoli...

s used in the teaching of first aid

First aid

First aid is the provision of initial care for an illness or injury. It is usually performed by non-expert, but trained personnel to a sick or injured person until definitive medical treatment can be accessed. Certain self-limiting illnesses or minor injuries may not require further medical care...

, CPR

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation is an emergency procedure which is performed in an effort to manually preserve intact brain function until further measures are taken to restore spontaneous blood circulation and breathing in a person in cardiac arrest. It is indicated in those who are unresponsive...

, and advanced airway management skills such as tracheal intubation

Tracheal intubation

Tracheal intubation, usually simply referred to as intubation, is the placement of a flexible plastic or rubber tube into the trachea to maintain an open airway or to serve as a conduit through which to administer certain drugs...

and for human figures used in computer simulation

Computer simulation

A computer simulation, a computer model, or a computational model is a computer program, or network of computers, that attempts to simulate an abstract model of a particular system...

to model the behaviour of the human body. During the 1950s, mannequins were used in nuclear tests to help illustrate the effects of nuclear weapons on human beings.

Mannequin comes from the French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

word mannequin, which had acquired the meaning "an artist's jointed model", which in turn came from the Middle Dutch

Dutch language

Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...

word mannekijn, meaning "little man, figurine".
Shop mannequins are derived from dress form

Dress form

A dress form is a three-dimensional model of the torso used for fitting clothing that is being designed or sewed. When making a piece of clothing, it can be put on the dress form so one can see the fit and drape of the garment as it would appear on a body, and make adjustments or alterations.Dress...

s used by fashion houses for dress making.