sitter

plural sitters

1. Someone who sits, e.g. for a portrait.

   1 more example

   The photograph caused a stir last week because it was shortlisted for the National Portrait Gallery’s prestigious Taylor Wessing prize, despite the rule that “all photographs must have been taken by the entrant from life and with a living sitter”. However realistic Erica may be, and to me she looks more like a sex doll than a real person, she was certainly not a living sitter.

   2017 September 10, Nigel Warburton, “What does a portrait of Erica the android tell us about being human?”, in The Observer

2. One employed to watch or tend something; a babysitter, housesitter, petsitter, etc.

   It's always such a pain to get a sitter on short notice.

   1 more example

   Those domestic worries came through in pop-culture depictions of the sitter. In the midst of the 1960s sexual revolution, she was often portrayed as a temptress, seducing fathers when mom was away; in the ’70s, she started showing up in horror movies, trapped with a killer in the house and kids to protect[…]

   2024 March 19, Faith Hill, “Don’t Tell America the Babysitter’s Dead”, in The Atlantic

3. A sitting room.
4. A participant in a séance who is not a medium.

   "The sitters had better just take their own places," said the medium.

   1925 July – 1926 May, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “(please specify the chapter number)”, in The Land of Mist (eBook no. 0601351h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg Australia, published April 2019

5. A broody hen.
6. slangball gamesA very easy scoring chance.

   How could he miss that? It was an absolute sitter!

   1 more example

   Aaron Ramsey, a hero last season against Hull, missed a sitter at the end of normal time that would have made the game safe and must have been relieved that his shot against a post from four yards out did not cost his side more dearly.

   2015 April 18, Paul Wilson, The Guardian

7. Someone who accompanies a person who is taking a psychedelic drug, to provide reassurance in case of a bad trip.

plural Sitters

1. countableuncountableA surname.
2. countableuncountableA river in north-east Switzerland, a tributary of the Thur.