pillar

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English piler, later pillar,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Anglo-Norman piler and Old French piler, pilier,^{[5][2][6][7][4]} and partly directly borrowed from Medieval Latin pīlāre,^[5][2][3][8] formed from Latin pīla (“pillar, pier, stone barrier”) with the suffix -āre.^[5][2][3] The spelling ending in -ar was adopted from the 14th century, after other words with that ending,^[9][4] and Barnhart first finds pillar in 1434.^[3] The Latin noun, also the source of pile, pilaster and compile,^[9][10] is of unknown origin according to Etymonline;^[2] Barnhart gives an earlier form *peilā and compares Oscan ehpeilatasset (“they are erected”).^[3] Related Romance words include Old Occitan pilar, Catalan pilar and Spanish pilar, and the Latin word was also borrowed into the Germanic languages, as in Dutch pijler and German Pfeiler.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

A tall upright structure supporting a building or standing as a monument: about 1180, in notes to the Old English Hexateuch;^[5] Etymonline and Barnhart date the word to about 1200, Barnhart finding the form pilar in the Ancrene Riwle.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

By about 1225 the word was used of the pillar to which Christ was bound to be scourged,^[5] and in Scotland from the 15th century of a whipping post or a platform for public penance.^[5] Upright masses of air, water, sand or fire are pillars from before 1325, and poets spoke of the pillars on which the earth or the heavens rest.^[5] The figurative sense of a person who supports an institution, as in a pillar of the church, dates from about 1330 and probably follows Galatians 2:9;^[5][2] a principle that supports something is a pillar from before 1555, after 1 Timothy 3:15.^[5] Later uses include the uprights of furniture and machines (1360), of a harp (1794) and of a car body (1907),^[5] and in northern coal mining a block of coal left to hold up the roof.^[11] A pillar box has been called simply a pillar since 1865.^[5] The phrase from pillar to post, from one place or thing to another, is dated by Word Origins to the mid 16th century, after the earlier post to pillar of the early 15th;^[10] Etymonline dates it to about 1600, with post to pillar from the late 15th century.^[2] Word Origins and Weekley trace it to real tennis,^[10][12] while Etymonline thinks the exact meaning obscure and doubts a link with the post at the centre of a riding school.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1180 – a column supporting a structure or standing as a monument.^[5]
• c. 1225 – the pillar at which Christ was scourged.^[5]
• before 1325 – a column of air, water or fire; the mythical supports of earth and sky.^[5]
• c. 1330 – a person who supports an institution.^[5][2]
• 1360 – an upright support in furniture or machinery.^[5]
• 1434 – the spelling pillar.^[3]
• before 1555 – a principle that supports something.^[5]
• 1787 – verb, to support with pillars.^[5][13]
• 1865 – a pillar box.^[5]
• 1907 – a roof post of a car.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. An upright column of stone, brick, wood or metal that supports a structure or stands as a monument.^[14][13][5]
2. Something resembling this in shape: a pillar of dust rose from the road.^[14][5]
3. A tall, slender column of rock standing on its own.^[14][13]
4. A person who strongly supports an institution or cause: a pillar of the community.^[14][5]
5. A fact or principle that is a main support of something.^[5]
6. In a car, one of the posts that join the roof to the body.^[5]
7. from pillar to post: from one place or person to another, without a clear purpose.^[14][2]

Verb

1. To support with pillars, or as if with pillars.^[14][13][5]

Word family

• pillarless
• pillared
• pillarlike
• pillar box

Related words

• pile
• compile
• pillory

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
10. ^ a b c Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
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. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
13. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
14. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins