pediment

Etymology

The word is of uncertain origin.^[2][3][4] It is an alteration of earlier periment and peremint,^[3][5][6] which most dictionaries take as from English an alteration of pyramid,^{[6][7][8][9][10]} perhaps a workmen's form, the link being the triangular shape.^[3][5][11] The OED bases this on a colloquial or regional pronunciation of the word for the pyramid, with the final syllable assimilated to -ment.^[2] Weekley notes that the older form was explained in the 16th century as "corrupt English" and survived in dialect for a pyramid.^[12] The spellings pedament and pedement show the influence of the stem of Latin pēs (“foot”);^{[2][7][8][13][14]} compare pedāmentum (“stake or prop for vines”) and Italian pedamento (“foundation, groundwork, base”).^[2][5] For the sense "base, foundation" alone, Merriam-Webster Unabridged suggests the Italian word directly.^[6] The OED also reports a suggested shortening of operiment, and calls an alteration of perimeter, which the 1592 quotation implies, unlikely on grounds of sense and sound.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A wide triangular structure crowning the front of a classical building: 1592, in R. Dallington's translation of Colonna's Hypnerotomachia, as periment or peremint.^[2][3] Barnhart and Merriam-Webster Unabridged first find the form pediment in 1664, and Etymonline in the 1660s.^[3][6][5]

Semantic evolution

By the early 17th century the name was also used for the same shape in decorative work, on top of bookcases, cupboards and clocks.^[2] Because the first part of the word was linked with Latin ped-, "foot", it also came to mean a base or foundation, and now especially, perhaps by confusion, a pedestal.^[2][8][5] Johnson (1755) derived it from Latin pedis and described an ornament crowning the fronts of buildings and set over gates, windows and niches, usually triangular but sometimes arched.^[15] In 1897 W. J. McGee applied the word to a broad sloping rock surface at the foot of a mountain in arid country.^[2][4] French has no record of the architectural senses; its geological sense, from 1937, comes from English.^[2]

Timeline

• 1592 – the triangular front of a classical building, as periment or peremint.^[2][3]
• 1603–4 – a similar low gable on furniture.^[2]
• 1660 – a base or foundation, in R. Pratt's notebooks.^[2] Etymonline dates this sense to 1726.^[5]
• 1664 – the form pediment.^[3][6]
• 1897 – a sloping rock surface at the foot of a mountain.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A wide, low, usually triangular gable crowning the front of a classical building, especially over a portico: Sculpted figures filled the pediment of the old courthouse.^[11][6][2]
2. A similar decorative form over a door, window or niche, or on top of furniture such as a bookcase.^[6][2][4]
3. (geomorphology) A broad, gently sloping bedrock surface at the foot of a steep mountain in an arid region, usually under a thin layer of alluvium.^[11][6][2]
4. A base or foundation; a pavement or pedestal.^[6][2][4]

Word family

• pedimental
• pedimented

Related words

• pyramid
• pedestal

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
11. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
12. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
13. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
14. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
15. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.