Glossary
Statue
A sculpted figure (usually a person or animal, typically life-size or larger) most often made to honour or commemorate its subject.
Statue versus sculpture, settled: every statue is a sculpture, but a sculpture is a statue only when it depicts a figure. Abstract work is never a statue, however monumental.
The word carries commemorative baggage (the figure on the plinth, chosen by somebody to be looked up at), which is exactly why contemporary programs rarely commission statues outside memorial contexts, and why the statues a city already owns generate most of its public art controversies. Knowing the term's weight helps in public communication: calling a contested commemorative figure "a sculpture" reads as evasive, and audiences notice.