pedestal - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

Pedestal

Borrowed from Middle French piédestal, itself borrowed from Italian piedistallo (literally “foot stand”). Spelling influenced by Latin pēs, pedem.

pedestal (plural pedestals)

  1. (architecture) The base or foot of a column, statue, vase, lamp.
    • 2018 February 28, Rene Marsh, Ross Levitt, “See HUD’s $31,000 mahogany dining set”, in CNN‎[1], archived from the original on 2 December 2022:
      The table and two base pedestals cost more than $4,000. The pedestals are described as having “hand applied ebonized inlay with bell flowers topped by hand carved scrolls and a fluted column.”
    • 2021 December 15, Ami Vera, Artemis Moshtaghian, “Virginia to begin removal process of Robert E. Lee statue pedestal in Richmond, governor says”, in CNN‎[2], archived from the original on 12 June 2025:
      The state reached a deal with the city to remove the 40-foot granite pedestal the Lee statue sat on for more than a century.
  2. (figuratively) A place of reverence or honor.
    He has put his mother on a pedestal. You can't say a word against her.
    • 2012 August 31, Todd Leopold, “When the hero falls off the pedestal”, in CNN‎[3], archived from the original on 13 October 2022:
      It’s an old, old story. We’ve all placed people on pedestals, and then, almost inevitably, they let us down. They violate our trust. They betray us. They fall off the pedestal, or we remove them.
    • 2019 October 2, Lauren Frayer, “Gandhi Is Deeply Revered, But His Attitudes On Race And Sex Are Under Scrutiny”, in NPR‎[4], archived from the original on 6 April 2020:
      But India is also where the Mahatma may have fallen furthest from the pedestal.
  3. (rail transport) A casting secured to the frame of a truck of a railcar and forming a jaw for holding a journal box.
  4. (machining) A pillow block; a low housing.
  5. (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.
  6. (steam heating) a pedestal coil, group of connected straight pipes arranged side by side and one above another, used in a radiator.
  7. (telecommunications) A ground-level housing for a passive connection point for underground cables.
  8. (electronics) The measured value when no input signal is given.
  9. (aviation) The central part of the cockpit, between the pilots, where various controls are located.
  10. (photography) An item upon which television cameras are mounted.
  11. The tough protuberant pad covering a dromedary's sternum, which, when the camel lies down, causes the abdomen to be slightly above the hot ground.

figuratively: a place of reverence or honor

pedestal (third-person singular simple present pedestals, present participle (US) pedestaling or (UK) pedestalling, simple past and past participle (US) pedestaled or (UK) pedestalled)

  1. To set or support on (or as if on) a pedestal.

Borrowed from Italian piedestallo.

pedestal m (plural pedestals)

  1. (architecture) pedestal (the base or foot of a column, statue, vase, lamp, or the like)
  2. (figuratively) pedestal (a place of reverence or honor)

pedestal m (plural pedestais)

  1. (architecture) pedestal (the base or foot of a column, statue, vase, lamp, or the like)
  2. (figuratively) pedestal (a place of reverence or honor)

pedestal n (plural pedestaluri)

  1. obsolete form of piedestal

Borrowed from French piédestal, itself borrowed from Italian piedistallo (literally “foot stand”).

pedestal m (plural pedestales)

  1. (architecture) pedestal (the base or foot of a column, statue, vase, lamp, or the like)
  2. (figuratively) pedestal (a place of reverence or honor)