marionette

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a puppet moved from above by strings attached to its limbs

   The puppeteer made the marionette bow to the audience.

2. 2
   noun

   a person or organization controlled by someone else

   Critics dismissed the new ruler as a marionette of the occupying power.

Borrowed from French marionnette, originally a diminutive of Marion, a form of Marie. The name was used for small figures of the Virgin Mary and then for puppets generally; the figurative sense extends the strings of control to people.

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