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
And there's Salma Hayek in her clinking lavender gown, gliding through like a Technicolor caryatid.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 6, 2018
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
Jean Goujon himself has left his brilliant souvenirs on all sides, caryatides, festoons, bas-reliefs, statues and colonnades.
From Royal Palaces and Parks of France by McManus, Blanche
There are two beautiful caryatides by Vittoria and rich mural work by Battista Franco and De Moro.
From Italy, the Magic Land by Whiting, Lilian
Lord Elgin carried off to London, about 1801-1803, one of the columns of the east portico and one of the caryatides; these were replaced later by terra-cotta casts.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 9, Slice 7 "Equation" to "Ethics" by Various
The dome is decorated with frescoes and caryatides, and with the statues of numbers of eminent men, among whom are Dante, Raphael, Savonarola, and Cavour.
From Italy, the Magic Land by Whiting, Lilian
On the exterior wall one sees the pagan idea of caryatides carried out with Christian symbols, two figures of angels.
From The Cathedrals and Churches of the Rhine by Mansfield, M. F. (Milburg Francisco)
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
He called them the "caryatids of that great and marvellous epoch that was ours".
From BBC ● Feb. 24, 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.
