pilaster
Americannoun
noun
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of pilaster
1565–75; pile 1 (in obsolete sense “pillar”) + -aster 1, modeled on Italian pilastro or Medieval Latin pīlastrum
Explanation
In architecture, a pilaster is a feature that looks like a supporting column but is actually part of the wall itself. While most columns and pillars hold up a roof, pilasters are just ornamental. The word pilaster comes from Latin roots, pila, or "pillar," and the suffix -aster, "expressing incomplete resemblance." In other words, a pilaster looks almost — but not quite — like a pillar. You can think of these architectural features as decorative columns that protrude slightly from a wall, often framing a doorway or window. If you get the chance to stroll around Paris, you're likely to see pilasters decorating the facades of many 19th-century buildings.
Vocabulary lists containing pilaster
The Namesake
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Art History
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Novel Study: The Namesake, Chapters 5–7
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
It wasn’t until the 1970s that Italian art historian Rodolfo Signorini discovered that Mantegna had included his own watchful face, lurking inside trompe l’oeil foliage on a west-wall pilaster.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 25, 2026
Close by, below the southern corner of the portico at Zadok's tomb, and underneath the pilaster in the exedras, a vessel of incense in pine wood and a vessel of incense in cassia wood ...
From Time Magazine Archive
In Germany, the Bauhaus scrapped pilaster, pediment and ornaments and created buildings with flat roofs and walls of glass.
From Time Magazine Archive
What he thought was an antenna is nothing more than a painted rod run up the side of a pilaster, probably meant to anchor a clothesline.
From "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr
An exclamation of surprise and dismay escaped her, on beholding the private room open, and anxiously advancing, she discovered me, my head resting against a pilaster, and my hand pressed to my beating temples.
From The Mysterious Wanderer, Vol. III A Novel in Three Volumes by Sophia Reeve
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
