rostrum

American  

[ros-truhm] / ˈrɒs trəm /

noun

• rostra,
  plural
• rostrums
  plural

1. any platform, stage, or the like, for public speaking.

   Synonyms:

   lectern, podium, dais, stand

2. a pulpit.

3. a beaklike projection from the prow of a ship, especially one on an ancient warship for ramming an enemy ship; beak; ram.

4. Roman Antiquity. (in the forum) the raised platform, adorned with the beaks of captured warships, from which orations, pleadings, etc., were delivered.

5. Biology. a beaklike process or extension of some part; rostellum.

6. British Theater. a raised platform or dais, especially one with hinged sides that can be folded and stored within a relatively small space.

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rostrum British  

/ ˈrɒstrəm /

noun

1. any platform, stage, or dais on which public speakers stand to address an audience

2. a platform or dais in front of an orchestra on which the conductor stands

3. another word for ram

4. the prow or beak of an ancient Roman ship

5. biology zoology a beak or beaklike part

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Usage

What does rostrum mean? Rostrum most commonly means a kind of platform for public speaking. Close synonyms are podium and lectern. A pulpit can also be called a rostrum. Rostrum also has a few very different meanings. In biology, a rostrum is a beak or beaklike part. This sense of the word was extended to refer to the beaklike projection on the prow of a ship, especially one on an ancient Roman warship that was used for ramming enemy ships. The ancient Romans sometimes decorated columns and platforms with the rostrums of captured ships (or with representations of them). This led to the use of the word rostrum to refer to a speaking platform. The adjective rostral can be used to describe such columns (called rostral columns). Rostral is also used in the context of anatomy, especially of animals, to describe things that have or resemble a beak or snout. The correct plural form of rostrum can be rostrums or rostra. Example: I’m always nervous before a big speech, but I become calm as soon as I step onto the rostrum.

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• rostra
  plural
• rostrums
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of rostrum

1570–80; < Latin rōstrum snout, bill, beak of a bird, ship's prow (in plural, speaker's platform), equivalent to rōd ( ere ) to gnaw, bite ( cf. rodent) + -trum instrumental suffix, with dt > st

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Explanation

You've probably listened to speakers who stood on a raised platform, or watched the winners in sports competitions step up onto a platform to accept their awards. The platform they're standing on is called a rostrum. Rostrum, originally "animal snout or bird's beak" in Latin, has a back-and-forth history. The word came to be used for the battering beak at a warship’s bow. The ancient Romans used beaks from captured ships to decorate a platform from which orators could speak, called the rostra, the plural of rostrum. In the mid-17th century, rostrum came to mean a platform for speeches, performances, or receiving awards. By the way, the plural of rostrum is still rostra.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

rostrum rostra rostrums

The address will mark the first time in five years that Newsom delivers a State of the State from the Assembly rostrum.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 8, 2026

Barker is like a 6-foot-4-inch dancer at the rostrum, and he gives people time to deliberate, she said.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 22, 2025

In November 2017, Jussi Pylkkänen, the global president of Christie’s, was on the rostrum in New York to sell Leonardo da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi.”

From New York Times ● Dec. 5, 2023

Religious conservatives cheered Johnson’s election Wednesday, after which he brought his Bible to the rostrum before taking the oath of office.

From Seattle Times ● Oct. 27, 2023

He led Meggie away with him down from the rostrum, past all the people and the strange creatures crowding into the arena outside Capricorn's village as if they had always been there.

From "Inkheart" by Cornelia Funke

Twelve thousand words long,* it was handed to clerks in the House and Senate who intoned it from the nation's rostra.

From Time Magazine Archive

Instead, clerks intoned his Message from the Nation's rostra.

From Time Magazine Archive

He is Dr. Harry F. Covington, Professor of Public Speaking and Debating, whose classes meet before the temple rostra.

From Time Magazine Archive

It is not surprising that men should have wept when they saw that ghaatly face staring at them from the rostra, and the protruding tongue and the outstretched hands.

From The Life of Cicero Volume II. by Anthony Trollope

Mr. Ward asked leave to defend himself in English, and occupied one of the rostra, usually devoted to the recital of prize poems and essays.

From The Oxford Movement Twelve Years, 1833-1845 by R. W. (Richard William) Church

They suck food through strawlike beaks called rostrums.

From Washington Post ● Apr. 1, 2021

There has been plenty of pomp and circumstance, and even more long-windedness, as governors from coast to coast stepped to rostrums this month to deliver their annual State of the State addresses.

From New York Times ● Jan. 26, 2018

It's incredible how focused and single-minded you have to be, and how hard you have to train, even to think about going to the Olympics, let alone standing on any rostrums.

From The Guardian ● Apr. 20, 2010

This summer six of them took to various rostrums to bemoan their plight as ultimate arbiters in an overly litigious society.

From Time Magazine Archive

How often were they declaimed from the school rostrums in the days, dear reader, when you and I were young!

From Home Life of Great Authors by Hattie Tyng Griswold

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Related Words

• dais
• lectern
• podium

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