Pulpit

How to spell pulpit

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce pulpit

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does pulpit mean?

1. nounA raised, enclosed platform in a church from which a member of the clergy delivers a sermon.
2. nounA position or platform that gives someone the opportunity to express opinions publicly and influence others.

Pulpit in a sentence

• The vicar climbed the steps to the pulpit before the service began.

• The new role gave her a pulpit to campaign for fairer wages.

• A carved oak pulpit stood at the front of the old chapel.

• He used his weekly column as a pulpit for his views on housing.

Where does pulpit come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes directly from the Latin pulpitum, which meant a raised wooden platform or stage, the kind used by actors and public speakers in the ancient world. English took it over during the 1300s, narrowing the meaning to the elevated enclosed stand from which a preacher reads and delivers a sermon in a church. The original theatrical sense survives in the idea that the pulpit is a place to be seen and heard by a gathered audience. Over time the word also broadened figuratively, so a person with a public platform for opinion is said to have a pulpit, as in the political phrase 'bully pulpit'. The spelling has stayed remarkably close to the Latin, which is why it keeps the slightly awkward double cluster, two separate p sounds wrapped around an l.

How the word is built

• pulpit (from Latin pulpitum: a raised platform or stage); no prefix or suffix, the whole word descends from a single Latin root