Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A rectangular column with a capital and base, projecting only slightly from a wall as an ornamental motif.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A square pillar, with its capital and base, projecting from a pier, or from a wall, to the extent of from one quarter to one third of its breadth; an engaged pillar.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Arch.) An upright architectural member right-angled in plan, constructionally a pier (See pier, 1 (b)), but architecturally corresponding to a column, having capital, shaft, and base to agree with those of the columns of the same order. In most cases the projection from the wall is one third of its width, or less.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun architecture A rectangular column that projects partially from the wall to which it attached; it gives the appearance of a support, but is only for decoration.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a rectangular column that usually projects about a third of its width from the wall to which it is attached

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French pilastre, from Old French, from Old Italian pilastro, from Medieval Latin pīlaster : Latin pīla, pillar + Latin -aster, n. suff., or blend of Latin pīla, pillar, and Late Latin parastatēs, pilaster (from Greek, stay, supporter : para-, beside; see para– + -statēs, -stat).]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle French pilastre, from Italian pilastro.

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Examples

  • An anta may be described as a pilaster forming the termination of a wall.

    A History of Greek Art Frank Bigelow Tarbell 1886

  • Her husband had died when a pilaster of brick and smokey plaster came down on him like a wave.

    Bringing Them Home Meg Pokrass 2010

  • An architect's flawless ink-wash rendering of a fluted pilaster surmounted by a capital of the Composite order is, necessarily, an abstraction.

    The Forever City Robert Hughes 2011

  • Column and pilaster shafts are beige botticino marble while capitals and entablatures are, like the pseudomarble pilasters in the shrine, painted plaster.

    A Return to Grace Catesby Leigh 2010

  • Decorative painter John Canning worked out an extraordinarily subtle color scheme in which chromatic background wall and ceiling tints "bleed" into one another — from pale yellow into a soft gold in the finely articulated plasterwork of the sanctuary ceiling, and from the greenish hue on the walls and arcade piers flanking the nave into the dark-veined, deep-ochre imitation marble of the pilaster shafts on the piers.

    A Return to Grace Catesby Leigh 2010

  • Decorative painter John Canning worked out an extraordinarily subtle color scheme in which chromatic background wall and ceiling tints "bleed" into one another — from pale yellow into a soft gold in the finely articulated plasterwork of the sanctuary ceiling, and from the greenish hue on the walls and arcade piers flanking the nave into the dark-veined, deep-ochre imitation marble of the pilaster shafts on the piers.

    A Return to Grace Catesby Leigh 2010

  • Column and pilaster shafts are beige botticino marble while capitals and entablatures are painted plaster.schafphoto. com Like the shrine, the focus is again on a baldachin - here, with swirling bronze Solomonic columns and an exuberant superstructure inspired by Bernini's baldachin at St. Peter's.

    Holy Architecture 2010

  • Column and pilaster shafts are beige botticino marble while capitals and entablatures are, like the pseudomarble pilasters in the shrine, painted plaster.

    A Return to Grace Catesby Leigh 2010

  • Decorative painter John Canning worked out an extraordinarily subtle color scheme in which chromatic background wall and ceiling tints "bleed" into one another — from pale yellow into a soft gold in the finely articulated plasterwork of the sanctuary ceiling, and from the greenish hue on the walls and arcade piers flanking the nave into the dark-veined, deep-ochre imitation marble of the pilaster shafts on the piers.

    A Return to Grace Catesby Leigh 2010

  • Column and pilaster shafts are beige botticino marble while capitals and entablatures are painted plaster.schafphoto. com Like the shrine, the focus is again on a baldachin - here, with swirling bronze Solomonic columns and an exuberant superstructure inspired by Bernini's baldachin at St. Peter's.

    Holy Architecture 2010

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