puppet

noun

1. Any small model of a person or animal able to be moved by strings or rods, or in the form of a glove.
2. (figuratively)A person, country, etc, controlled by another.

   “These men , from no worse motive that could be discovered than a thirst after knowledge beyond their sphere , committed burglary upon the barn in which the puppets had been consigned to repose”

   “Every act of a Roman, from birth to death, from dawn to night, was controlled and supervised by some presiding deity. Man was thus virtually a symbolic puppet in the hands of the Roman pantheon.”

3. (obsolete)A poppet; a small image in the human form; a doll.
4. The upright support for the bearing of the spindle in a lathe.

verb

1. (also, figuratively, transitive)To control or manipulate like a puppet.