pulpit

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English pulpit, also pulpite,^[2][3] borrowed from Anglo-Norman pulpit and Middle French pulpite,^[4][2][5] and directly borrowed from Latin pulpitum (“scaffold, platform, stage”).^[4][3][6][2] In Late Latin, from the 3rd century, the word also meant a pulpit in a church.^[4][6][7] The Anglo-Norman word is recorded from about 1275, meaning a raised structure or balcony and a preacher's platform.^[8][4] Most dictionaries call the Latin word of uncertain or unknown origin,^{[4][9][7][10][11]} the OED probably a loanword;^[4] the AHD suggests it may be a back-formation from the plural “pulpita”, perhaps, through an Etruscan form, from the neuter plural of Ancient Greek πολύπους (polúpous, “having many feet”).^[12] The Latin word was also borrowed into Middle High German pulpit, whence German Pult (“desk”),^[7][11] and continues in Spanish púlpito and Italian pulpito;^[4] French pupitre (“lectern, desk”) has an inserted -r-.^[4][13]

Earliest recorded meaning

A pulpit in a church, or a platform for speaking: Barnhart finds pulpite before 1338 in Mannyng's Chronicle, and pulpit about 1395.^[3] The OED's first record is Trevisa's translation of Higden's Polychronicon (before 1387), for a stage or platform for public speeches, and the church sense follows about 1390.^[4] Etymonline dates the word to the early 14th century.^[7]

Semantic evolution

The classical sense, a platform or stage for public speaking, came into English first and lasted until 1683.^[4][10] Coverdale's Bible (1535) has Solomon standing on a brass pulpit, where the Authorized Version of 1611 has scaffold.^[10] Trench noted that earlier English made no distinction between the pulpit and the rostrum, as in Brutus's "I will myself into the pulpit first" in Julius Caesar.^[14][15] The church sense, a raised and enclosed platform from which the preacher gives the sermon, took over from the medieval Latin use.^[10][4] By metonymy, the pulpit has meant preachers and the clergy as a body since 1570,^[4][7] and figuratively a place from which a moral lecture is delivered since before 1616.^[4] Other raised places followed: a royal pew in a church (about 1390 to 1485), the poop of a ship (1512) and the platform on the bowsprit of a whaler, an auctioneer's desk (1710, also in The School for Scandal, quoted by Weekley), a control platform overlooking machinery (1880) and, in RAF slang, an aircraft's cockpit (1933).^[4][13][16] The verb, to provide with a pulpit (1529) and to preach (about 1540), is formed from the noun.^[4]

Timeline

• before 1338 – pulpite, in Mannyng's Chronicle.^[3]
• before 1387 – a stage or platform for public speeches (obsolete by 1683).^[4]
• c. 1390 – a raised platform in a church for the preacher; a royal pew (obsolete by 1485).^[4]
• 1512 – on a ship, the poop; later a platform on a whaler's bowsprit.^[4]
• 1529 – verb, to provide with a pulpit.^[4]
• 1570 – preachers or the clergy collectively.^[4][7]
• 1599 – a similar structure in a mosque or synagogue.^[4]
• 1710 – an auctioneer's desk.^[4]
• 1880 – a raised platform for controlling machinery.^[4]
• 1933 – RAF slang, the cockpit of an aircraft.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A raised, usually enclosed platform in a church, from which the preacher gives the sermon: The vicar climbed the steps of the pulpit.^[17][16][4]
2. the pulpit: preaching, or the clergy and their influence.^[17][4]
3. A similar raised structure, such as a lectern, or a platform from which machinery is controlled.^[17][16][4]
4. A place or medium for expressing opinions, such as a newspaper column.^[17][4]
5. (obsolete) A platform or stage for public speaking.^[16][4]

Verb

1. To provide with a pulpit; to preach from a pulpit.^[16][4]

Word family

• pulpital
• pulpitless
• pulpiteer
• Jack-in-the-pulpit
• bully pulpit

Related words

• ambo
• lectern
• rostrum

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c 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. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ 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 28 29 30 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
9. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b c d Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
11. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
12. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
13. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
14. ^ Trench, Richard Chenevix (1859), A Select Glossary of English Words Used Formerly in Senses Different from Their Present, London: John W. Parker
15. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
16. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
17. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins