standee
Standee (noun) means a large free-standing cardboard display, often a life-size cutout of a person or character, used to advertise a film or product in a cinema or shop. Example: “A standee of the villain went up in the foyer a month before release.”
How to use standee
Learner’s notesIn plain EnglishA big cardboard cutout advert, or someone with no seat.
The cardboard-display sense dominates in marketing, cinema and collecting. The passenger sense is technical transport vocabulary.
Collectors use standee almost exclusively for the promotional cutout, so context makes the sense clear.
Trace the full origin ↓Fill the gap
Can you complete this real example?
A _____ of the villain went up in the foyer a month before release.
Etymology
From stand plus the suffix -ee, on the pattern of words like employee and attendee.