caryatid
Americannoun
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of caryatid
1555–65; < Latin Caryātides (singular Caryātis ) < Greek Karyā́tides columns shaped like women, literally, women of Karýai, Laconia
Vocabulary lists containing caryatid
Ancient Greece - Middle School and High School
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Art History
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Example Sentences
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See Examples For:
The single square column features crouching figures in the capital who seem to be holding up the arch, a playful evocation of the classical figure of the caryatid or herm.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 21, 2026
Sometimes a caryatid has been compared to the unseen slave who carried society’s burdens.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 15, 2023
In ancient Greece, the culture where male athletes were so highly prized as heroic citizens, a caryatid was a draped female figure used instead of a column as an architectural support.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 15, 2023
You may think that David Cameron's well-heeled colleagues would give him a marble caryatid bought from the Frieze Masters art fair for his birthday.
From The Guardian ● Oct. 12, 2012
“A caryatid wouldn’t be strong enough for Dad.”
From "The Glass Castle" by Jeannette Walls
A president could hardly have given more thought to selecting his cabinet than Persis gave to the choice of her bridesmaids, those lieutenants who must stand by in the same uniform like moving caryatides.
From What Will People Say? A novel by Hughes, Rupert
He paused in the sea of green moonlight before the gold threshold of the Palais du Danse, whose caryatides were faun-eyed Mænads and Ægipans.
From Just Around the Corner Romance en casserole by Hurst, Fannie
We can still contemplate in the court of the Louvre, in the pavilion of the Horloge, those caryatides of Sarazin at once so majestic and so graceful, which are detached with admirable relief and lightness.
From Lectures on the true, the beautiful and the good by Cousin, Victor
Four huge totem poles, or ponderous carvings, supported the heavy beams of the roof in the manner of caryatides.
From Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska by Stoddard, Charles Warren
On one side was a bookcase supported by caryatides.
From The Paliser case by Saltus, Edgar
A critic of the day hailed the bravura Hunt caryatids as “full of sentiment, showing a refined imagination, a scholar’s grasp of the requirements and an artist’s appreciation of fitness.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 8, 2026
In it, she and Cardi B dress in Grecian goddess-inspired dresses, dance in front of classically inspired statuary, wear headdresses that evoke caryatids and transform into Grecian vases.
From Salon ● Sep. 4, 2021
He sat in a ostentatious Greek-style hall bedecked with four caryatids, the draped female figures used in columns — a style first seen in Delphi 2 ½ millennia ago.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 12, 2019
A dozen caryatids - sculpted female figures which had helped support one of the building's domed roofs - were carefully lowered.
From BBC ● Jan. 27, 2016
These marble women are called caryatids, which orginally referred to the priestesses of Artemis at Caryae.
From "Cat's Eye" by Margaret Atwood
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
