colonnade

Etymology

It is borrowed from French colonnade.^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} Barnhart, the American Heritage Dictionary, Merriam-Webster Unabridged and Klein take it as an alteration of earlier French colonnate (1675), from Italian colonnato;^[4][5][8][6] the OED, Collins and the Dictionary.com text derive it from colonne (“column”) with the suffix -ade, modelled on the Italian word.^[2][9][10] The Italian noun comes from colonna (“column”),^[4][5][3] from Latin columna (“pillar”),^[4][3] a collateral form of columen (“top, summit”), from Proto-Indo-European *kel- (“to be prominent; hill”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A series of columns at regular intervals, supporting an entablature: in 1718, in a letter of 28 August by Lady M. W. Montagu.^[2] Barnhart, Etymonline and Merriam-Webster Unabridged agree on 1718.^[11][3][8]

Semantic evolution

Johnson (1755), who derived the word from Italian, defines it first narrowly, as a peristyle of columns set in a circle, and then as any range of pillars, with quotations from Addison and Pope.^[12] The word was extended to a row of trees or similar upright things: the OED's first record is in Cowper's The Task (1785),^[2] while the Shorter Oxford dates this use to the mid 18th century.^[13]

Timeline

• 1718 – a series of regularly spaced columns.^{[2][3][11][8]}
• 1785 – a row of trees or other upright objects, in Cowper.^[2] The Shorter Oxford dates the sense to the mid 18th century.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. A row of columns set at regular intervals, usually supporting a roof or entablature: A long colonnade ran along one side of the square.^[9][8][2]
2. A similar row of trees or other uprights: a colonnade of old poplars.^[9][8][2]

Word family

• colonnaded

Related words

• column
• colonel

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
10. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
11. ^ a b Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
12. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press