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
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
Saint Michael, standing on top of a dejected and doubled-up dragon, looks down on figures that are crosses between respectable caryatides and disreputable mermaids.
From Cathedrals of Spain by John A.
For those He loves that underprop With daily virtues Heaven’s top, And bear the falling sky with ease, Unfrowning caryatides.
From The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 14 (of 25) by Stevenson, Robert Louis
Such was the apostrophe with which the caryatides of the Café Prosper hereafter greeted the Captain, whose visits became rarer day by day.
From Ten Tales by Learned, Walter
These pulpits are supported by caryatides representing the Evangelists and four doctors of the Church.
From Cathedral Cities of Italy by Collins, William Wiehe
Brought together from three separate museum collections, they are lined up in a row, Modernist caryatids of a farewell portal.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 6, 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
Small kids were perched on tabletops because there weren't enough chairs, and the Epiphany sixth graders stood like caryatids leaning against three of the four walls of the room.
From "The View From Saturday" by E.L. Konigsburg
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.
