Pillar

How to spell pillar

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce pillar

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does pillar mean?

1. nounA tall upright structure, usually of stone or concrete, that supports part of a building or stands as a monument.
2. nounA person or principle that provides essential support or strength to something.

Pillar in a sentence

• A cracked pillar near the entrance forced the museum to close that wing.

• She was regarded as a pillar of the local community for decades.

• The surveyor measured the height of each stone pillar in the ruined temple.

• Honesty became the central pillar of the company's training programme.

Where does pillar come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin pila, which meant a stone pier, a pillar, or a solid mass of masonry. The Latin form passed into Medieval Latin as pilare and then into Old French as piler, keeping the sense of an upright support holding up a roof or arch. English took it on in the early Middle Ages, with written forms appearing around the 1200s, and over time the spelling settled with a doubled l and the unusual -ar ending rather than the -er you might expect. The same Latin pila is also an ancestor of the architectural term 'pilaster', a flattened column set against a wall. The figurative use, a person who is a steadfast support to a group, grew naturally from the literal image of something that bears great weight, and the -ar spelling remains the chief trap, since the ear hears a plain -er.

How the word is built

• pill- (from Latin pila: stone pier, column)
• -ar (noun suffix)