candlestick

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English candel-stikke,^[2][3] inherited from Old English candelsticca,^[2][4][5][6] a compound from Old English candel (“candle”) + sticca (“stick”).^[4][7][8] The first part is an early ecclesiastical borrowing from Latin candēla (“a light, torch, candle”),^[5] and the second goes back to Proto-Germanic *stikkon-.^[5] The OED finds no ground for the inference that the object was first a piece of pointed wood, and compares candle-staff.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

A support for a candle: before 1000,^[9] with the OED's first quotation from a charter of Bishop Æthelwold.^[4] Apparently the earliest recorded meaning was the metal stalk or shaft of a candelabrum.^[4] Other Old English charters list silver and gilded ones, and before 1121 the Peterborough Chronicle has thieves carrying them off with crosses and chalices.^[6][2]

Semantic evolution

The word was once a general name for any support for candles, including chandeliers, branches and lustres, whether upright, branched or hanging; in Middle English it could also be a stand for a lamp.^[4][2] It now chiefly means a movable stand.^[4] A figurative use from 1483, in Caxton, looks chiefly to Revelation 1:20.^[4] Johnson (1755) defined it as "the instrument that holds candles" and quoted Shakespeare's Henry V for horsemen sitting like fixed candlesticks.^[10] From 1915 it also named an upright telephone, a type common from the 1890s to the 1940s.^[5] Dialects transferred it to the child who steadies the middle of a see-saw (Ulster and Lancashire), to herb Robert in Devon and to the garden cowslip in Lakeland.^[11] Slang applied it to the vagina (1654), to small or untunable bells (1785, in Grose), to the Trafalgar Square fountains (1861, in Mayhew) and, in Ireland, to a drop of mucus from the nose.^[12]

Timeline

• before 1000 – a support for a candle.^[9][4]
• 1483 – figurative, with reference to Revelation.^[4]
• 1654 – slang, the vagina.^[12]
• 1785 – slang, in the plural, small or untunable bells.^[12]
• 1861 – slang, a fountain in Trafalgar Square.^[12]
• 1915 – an upright telephone.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A holder for a candle, often ornamental, with a socket or spike: a pair of brass candlesticks on the mantel.^[13][8][4]
2. (figurative) A candlestick together with its lighted candle, chiefly with reference to Revelation 1:20.^[4]
3. An upright telephone of a type common from the 1890s to the 1940s.^[5]

Related words

• candle
• stick
• candelabrum
• chandelier

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ Stratmann, Francis Henry (1891), A Middle-English Dictionary, revised by Henry Bradley, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
7. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
10. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
12. ^ a b c d Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
13. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins