Pendant

How to spell pendant

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce pendant

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does pendant mean?

1. nounA piece of jewellery that hangs from a chain or necklace.
2. nounA light fitting that hangs from the ceiling on a cord or chain.

Pendant in a sentence

• She wore a silver pendant on a fine chain.

• They hung a copper pendant above the kitchen island.

• The jeweller engraved a date on the back of the pendant.

• The electrician replaced the old pendant with a brighter fitting.

Where does pendant come from?

Language of origin: French

This word comes from the French pendant, which is the present participle of the verb pendre, meaning 'to hang'. That French verb descends in turn from the Latin pendere, 'to hang' or 'to weigh', the same root that gives English a whole family of hanging and weighing words such as 'pendulum', 'suspend', 'depend', and 'pending'. English adopted pendant in the late 1300s to name an ornament that hangs, originally from a necklace or chain. The literal idea of dangling is the key to the spelling: a pendant is something that hangs, and the French participle ending explains why it finishes in -ant rather than -ent. Note that an older spelling, 'pendent', survives as an adjective meaning 'hanging', which is exactly why the two endings are so easily muddled.

How the word is built

• pend- (from Latin pendere: to hang)
• -ant (noun suffix, from a French present participle)