PEDESTAL • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Pedestal

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/pˈɛdəstəl/ Listen

noun

Pedestal n.

1.

(Arch.) The base or foot of a column, statue, vase, lamp, or the like; the part on which an upright work stands. It consists of three parts, the base, the die or dado, and the cornice or surbase molding. "Build him a pedestal, and say, "Stand there!""

2.

Hence: A short free-standing column or column-like object designed to support a work of art or other object; a column serving the same function as the base of a statue. It may be made of wood, marble, or other suitable material.

3.

(Furniture) A part of a desk which contains a frame and drawers, stands on the floor, and provides support for the desk surface. There may be zero, one, or two such pedestals in a desk.

4.

(a)

(Railroad Cars) A casting secured to the frame of a truck and forming a jaw for holding a journal box.

(b)

(Mach.) A pillow block; a low housing.

(c)

(Bridge Building) An iron socket, or support, for the foot of a brace at the end of a truss where it rests on a pier.

Pedestal coil (steam Heating), a group of connected straight pipes arranged side by side and one above another, used in a radiator.

See images of 'Pedestal'

Etymology of 'Pedestal'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Pedestal" Quotes from Famous Books

... into the circle of the torchlight rushed the Abbe Dominic, his eyes starting from his head with terror, his rent robe flapping on the ground. Exhausted and bewildered he cast himself down, and grasping the pedestal of an image began to cry for mercy, till a dozen fierce hands dragged him ...

— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard

... accepting the appointment, because, they said, it would shelve him, politically, use up his brains which ought to be spent on higher work, and allow the country which was just beginning to know him to forget his existence. Men drop out of sight so quickly at Washington unless they can stand on some pedestal which raises them above ...

— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer

... picture in the Pitti gallery at Florence may serve as a typical example. Andrea del Sarto's chef-d'oeuvre—the Madonna di San Francesco (Uffizi)—may also be assigned to this class, although the arrangement is entirely novel. The Virgin, holding the babe in her arms, stands on a sort of pedestal, carved at the corners with a design of harpies, from which the picture is often known as the Madonna of the Harpies. The pedestal throne is also seen in two of Correggio's Dresden pictures, but here the Virgin is seated, with ...

— The Madonna in Art • Estelle M. Hurll

... gratitude of some great lady of the eighteenth century who had been set upon by highwaymen at this spot and delivered from death just as hope seemed lost. In summer it was a pleasant place, for the deep woods on either side murmured, and the heather, which grew thick round the granite pedestal, made the light breeze taste sweetly; in winter the sighing of the trees was deepened to a hollow sound, and the heath was as gray and almost as solitary as the empty sweep of the clouds ...

— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf

... despair. The girl had once smiled brightly upon a youth who came to buy some tickets for his little sister, and the young man upon the platform, observing this smile, had been filled with gloomy rage. He stood like a dark statue of vengeance upon his pedestal and thrust out the basket to the children with a gesture that was full of scorn for their hollow happiness, for their insecure and temporary joy. For five hours he did not once look at the girl when she was looking at him. He was going to crush her with ...

— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane

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