Definitions

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

  • adjective Having a row of columns across the front only, as in some Greek and Roman temples.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • In architecture, noting a portico in which the columns stand out entirely in front of the walls of the building to which it is attached; also, noting a temple or other structure having columns in front only, but across the whole front, as distinguished from a portico in antis, or a structure characterized by such a portico. See amphiprostyle, anta, and portico.

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

  • adjective (Arch.) Having columns in front.

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

  • adjective of a structure Having pillars only along the front side
  • noun A building having pillars only along the front side

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

  • adjective marked by columniation having free columns in a portico only across the opening to the structure

Etymologies

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

[Latin prostȳlos, from Greek prostūlos : pro-, in front; see pro– + stūlos, pillar; see stā- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Ancient Greek πρόστυλος (próstȳlos, "having pillars").

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Examples

  • If the portico were formed merely by a row of columns without the aid of walls it was called a prostyle temple; if the same construction were also placed at the rear of the building it was amphiprostyle.

    The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 14: Simony-Tournon 1840-1916 1913

  • Did a vestibule exist at the front only, the temple would be called prostyle; as it is, it is amphiprostyle.

    A History of Greek Art Frank Bigelow Tarbell 1886

  • First there is the temple in antis, or [Greek: naos en parastasin] as it is called in Greek; then the prostyle, amphiprostyle, peripteral, pseudodipteral, dipteral, and hypaethral.

    The Ten Books on Architecture Vitruvius Pollio

  • The amphiprostyle is in all other respects like the prostyle, but has besides, in the rear, the same arrangement of columns and pediment.

    The Ten Books on Architecture Vitruvius Pollio

  • The prostyle is in all respects like the temple in antis, except that at the corners, opposite the antae, it has two columns, and that it has architraves not only in front, as in the case of the temple in antis, but also one to the right and one to the left in the wings.

    The Ten Books on Architecture Vitruvius Pollio

  • Athens, Philo set up columns in front before the temple, and made it prostyle.

    The Ten Books on Architecture Vitruvius Pollio

  • In the latter, excepting in the prostyle temple, the front had hardly any distinctive characteristic, in the peripteral, amphiprostyle, and other temples the back and front were alike.

    The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 14: Simony-Tournon 1840-1916 1913

  • Among them are a Roman bridge and a rock-hewn theatre, with nine tiers of seats and an orchestra fifty-seven feet in diameter, also a nymphaeum, an aqueduct, a large prostyle temple with portico and colonnades, and a peripteral temple preceded by a double colonnade.

    The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 3: Brownson-Clairvaux 1840-1916 1913

  • The temple of +Concord+, of which only the podium remains, and the small temple of Julius (both of these in the Forum) illustrate another form of prostyle temple in which the porch was on a long side of the cella.

    A Text-Book of the History of Architecture Seventh Edition, revised 1890

  • B.C., is a tetrastyle prostyle pseudoperipteral temple with a high _podium_ or base, a typical Etruscan cella, and a deep porch, now walled up, but thoroughly Greek in the elegant details of its Ionic order (Fig. 51).

    A Text-Book of the History of Architecture Seventh Edition, revised 1890

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