rostrum
Americannoun
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rostra,
plural
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rostrums
plural
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any platform, stage, or the like, for public speaking.
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a pulpit.
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a beaklike projection from the prow of a ship, especially one on an ancient warship for ramming an enemy ship; beak; ram.
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Roman Antiquity. (in the forum) the raised platform, adorned with the beaks of captured warships, from which orations, pleadings, etc., were delivered.
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Biology. a beaklike process or extension of some part; rostellum.
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British Theater. a raised platform or dais, especially one with hinged sides that can be folded and stored within a relatively small space.
noun
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any platform, stage, or dais on which public speakers stand to address an audience
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a platform or dais in front of an orchestra on which the conductor stands
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another word for ram
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the prow or beak of an ancient Roman ship
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biology zoology a beak or beaklike part
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
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
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.
Vocabulary lists containing rostrum
The Catcher in the Rye
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Declaration of the Rights of Woman (1791)
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The Stranger
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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.
See Examples For:
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
From the rostrum, Barker leaned in dramatically, smiled, sometimes waited.
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
General Assembly will mark his return to that rostrum for the first time since 2009, the last year of his previous presidency’s second term.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 18, 2023
She stepped heavily down from the rostrum and pointed the polished pointer at Pearl.
From "The Teacher’s Funeral" by Richard Peck
He is Dr. Harry F. Covington, Professor of Public Speaking and Debating, whose classes meet before the temple rostra.
From Time Magazine Archive
Instead, clerks intoned his Message from the Nation's rostra.
From Time Magazine Archive
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
On this day also, did a scholar ascend the rostra to greet in a well turned latin Ode the General as the honored guest of the house and to praise his virtues.
From Klytia A Story of Heidelberg Castle by Adolf Hausrath
At noon Pompey sat down, and Clodius got possession of the rostra, and in the middle of a violent tumult remained on his feet for two hours.
From The Life of Cicero Volume II. by Anthony Trollope
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
Recently, he has made a special effort to show him self in public, waving the hand, grasping trophies, gripping rostrums as he delivers his speeches in the familiar piping voice.
From Time Magazine Archive
The lecture rostrums will fairly swarm with these fortunates.
From The Curious Republic of Gondour, and Other Whimsical Sketches by Mark Twain
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.
