Dummy vs. Mannequin: What's the Difference?

Mannequin

A mannequin (also called a manikin, dummy, lay figure or dress form) is an often articulated doll used by artists, tailors, dressmakers, windowdressers and others especially to display or fit clothing. The term is also used for life-sized dolls with simulated airways used in the teaching of first aid, CPR, and advanced airway management skills such as tracheal intubation and for human figures used in computer simulation to model the behavior of the human body. During the 1950s, mannequins were used in nuclear tests to help show the effects of nuclear weapons on humans.

Mannequin comes from the French word mannequin, which had acquired the meaning “an artist’s jointed model”, which in turn came from the Flemish word manneken, meaning “little man, figurine”. In early use in the United Kingdom, it referred to fashion models themselves, the meaning as a dummy dating from the start of World War II.

Wikipedia

Dummy (noun)

A silent person; a person who does not talk.
Dummy (noun)

An unintelligent person.

“Don’t be such a dummy!”
Dummy (noun)

A figure of a person or animal used by a ventriloquist; a puppet.
Dummy (noun)

Something constructed with the size and form of a human, to be used in place of a person.

“To understand the effects of the accident, we dropped a dummy from the rooftop.”
Dummy (noun)

A deliberately nonfunctional device or tool used in place of a functional one.

“The hammer and drill in the display are dummies.”
Dummy (noun)

A “dummy teat”; a plastic or rubber teat used to soothe or comfort a baby; a pacifier. from 20th c.

“The baby wants her dummy.”
Dummy (noun)

A player whose hand is shown and is to be played from by another player.
Dummy (noun)

A bodily gesture meant to fool an opposing player in sport; a feint.
Dummy (noun)

A word serving only to make a construction grammatical.

“The pronoun “it” in “It’s a mystery why this happened” is a dummy.”
Dummy (noun)

An unused parameter or value.

“If flag1 is false, the other parameters are dummies.”
Dummy (noun)

(chiefly in rugby and soccer) a feigned pass or kick or play in order to deceive an opponent.
Dummy (verb)

To make a mock-up or prototype version of something, without some or all off its intended functionality.

“The carpenters dummied some props for the rehearsals.”
Dummy (verb)

To feint

Mannequin (noun)

A dummy, or life-size model of the human body, used for the fitting or displaying of clothes
Mannequin (noun)

A jointed model of the human body used by artists, especially to demonstrate the arrangement of drapery
Mannequin (noun)

An anatomical model of the human body for use in teaching of e.g. CPR
Mannequin (noun)

A person who models clothes

Wiktionary

Dummy (noun)

a model or replica of a human being

“a waxwork dummy”
Dummy (noun)

a figure used for displaying or fitting clothes

“a tailor’s dummy”
Dummy (noun)

a ventriloquist’s doll.
Dummy (noun)

an object designed to resemble and serve as a substitute for the real or usual one

“a dummy torpedo”

“tests using stuffed owls and wooden dummies”
Dummy (noun)

a rubber or plastic teat for a baby to suck on.
Dummy (noun)

a prototype or mock-up, especially of a book or the layout of a page.
Dummy (noun)

a blank round of ammunition.
Dummy (noun)

denoting a word that has no semantic content but is used to maintain grammatical structure

“a dummy subject as in ‘it is’ or ‘there are’”
Dummy (noun)

(chiefly in rugby and soccer) a feigned pass or kick intended to deceive an opponent.
Dummy (noun)

a stupid person.
Dummy (noun)

the declarer’s partner, whose cards are exposed on the table after the opening lead and played by the declarer.
Dummy (noun)

the exposed hand of the declarer’s partner.
Dummy (noun)

an imaginary fourth player in whist

“dummy whist”
Dummy (verb)

(chiefly in rugby and soccer) feign a pass or kick in order to deceive an opponent

“Blanco dummied past a static defence”
Dummy (verb)

create a mock-up of (a book, document, etc.)

“officials dummied up a set of photos”

Oxford Dictionary

Dummy vs. Mannequin