stanchion
Americannoun
verb (used with object)
-
stanchions,
present (3rd person singular)
-
stanchioned,
past participle, past
-
stanchioning
present participle
-
to furnish with stanchions.
-
to secure by or to a stanchion or stanchions.
noun
verb
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
stanchionsimple
-
stanchionssimple
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have stanchionedperfect
-
has stanchionedperfect
-
am stanchioningprogressive
-
are stanchioningprogressive
-
is stanchioningprogressive
-
have been stanchioningperfect progressive
-
has been stanchioningperfect progressive
Past
-
stanchionedsimple
-
had stanchionedperfect
-
was stanchioningprogressive
-
were stanchioningprogressive
-
had been stanchioningperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of stanchion
1375–1425; late Middle English stanchon < Old French estanchon, equivalent to estanche (variant of estance, probably < Vulgar Latin *stantia, equivalent to Latin stant- (stem of stāns ), present participle of stāre to stand + -ia -y 3 ) + -on noun suffix
Explanation
A stanchion is a post or rod used to support something. Stanchions hold things up. You can almost see the word stand in stanchion, and that should help you remember what it means. A stanchion stands straight up, and it supports a larger structure. In just about any building, you will see posts going from the floor to the ceiling: those are stanchions. Stanchions are part of many walls too. If you took the stanchions out, the building might fall down. Stanchions always go up and down; they're vertical and provide support.
Vocabulary lists containing stanchion
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
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Heart of Darkness
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Class Matters
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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:
That’s because it plans to run two lines simultaneously on either side of a new, shorter stanchion.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 15, 2025
However, even with a payment method linked, there was an issue at the stanchion, as the scanner repeatedly prompted the addition of a payment method when trying to re-enter the seating area.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 23, 2024
The debris was determined to be part of a stanchion used to mount batteries on a cargo pallet.
From BBC ● Apr. 16, 2024
He landed near the basket stanchion and immediately began grabbing at his left knee, while teammates reacted in obvious disbelief.
From Washington Times ● Apr. 23, 2023
But on a snowy night in the early 1980s, a car skidded into a stanchion, which hit him in the back.
From "Class Matters" by The New York Times
Traffic cones have been placed around the crater, and AFP reported that waves pounding the sea front can be seen "lapping in the hole and rushing out again under the stanchions that support the home".
From BBC ● Sep. 9, 2026
Executives bided their time behind stanchions in a fully-occupied and grey-carpeted room with bright overhead lighting in the Congress Center, the event hub for the annual confab in Davos.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 22, 2026
And you're funneled through a labyrinth of retractable stanchions like you’re about to meet a costumed mouse at Magic Kingdom, not a budtender named Jade.
From Salon ● Apr. 20, 2025
By Sunday afternoon, plastic stanchions and red caution tape cordoned off the corner of the building, where some glass and rubble from the smashed facade still lay.
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 5, 2023
Everything possible was carved with designs, even the stanchions where the goats put their heads and the stalls in the little barn.
From "Miracles on Maple Hill" by Virginia Sorensen
Such a one stands in the centre, its legs fixed in the floor, with four chairs around it, similarly stanchioned.
From The Flag of Distress A Story of the South Sea by Mayne Reid
In a time shorter than it takes to tell it, the two doomed men are made fast to the stanchioned chairs; where they sit bolt upright, firm as bollard heads.
From The Flag of Distress A Story of the South Sea by Mayne Reid
And the compass stanchioned on the bridge had gone along with a wave, stanchions and all.
From Tramping on Life An Autobiographical Narrative by Harry Kemp
The doors were closed, and the windows were stanchioned with iron.
From Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge by James Aitken Wylie
They mustered eighteen in all, and in half an hour they were ironed in a row along the stanchioned rail of the torpedo-boat.
From The Wreck of the Titan or, Futility by Morgan Robertson
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.
