Pinnacle

How to spell pinnacle

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce pinnacle

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does pinnacle mean?

1. nounThe highest or most successful point of something, such as achievement, fame, or development.
2. nounA small, slender turret or pointed ornament rising above the roof or buttress of a building.

Pinnacle in a sentence

• Winning the contract marked the pinnacle of her consulting career.

• A stone pinnacle crowned each corner of the cathedral tower.

• The small firm reached the pinnacle of its industry within a decade.

• The restorers replaced a crumbling pinnacle on the old church roof.

Where does pinnacle come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin pinnaculum, a diminutive of pinna, which meant a feather, a wing, or by extension a pointed peak or projecting point. The little ending -aculum gave the sense of a small wing-like or pointed thing, so pinnaculum literally described a tiny peak or a small pointed turret. English took the word in during the 1300s through Old French pinacle, at first to name the slender pointed spires that rise from the roofs of Gothic churches. From that architectural meaning it broadened into the familiar figurative sense of the highest point of anything, such as the peak of a career. The same pinna root is the reason for the doubled n, and it also lurks in the word 'pinnate', used of feather-shaped leaves.

How the word is built

• pinn- (from Latin pinna: wing, feather, or pointed peak)
• -acle (from Latin -aculum, a diminutive noun suffix)