pilaster Arch.
(pɪˈlæstə(r))
Also 6–7 pillastre, -ter, 7 pyl(l-, (pilley-stair).
[a. F. pilastre (1545 in Hatz.-Darm.), a. It. pilastro, in med.L. pīlastrum (1341), f. pīla a pillar: see -aster.]
1. A square or rectangular column or pillar; spec. such a pillar engaged in a wall, from which it projects with its capital and base a third, fourth, or other portion of its breadth; an engaged pillar; an anta; formerly applied also to the square pier of an arch, abutment of a bridge, or similar structure.
| 1575 Laneham Let. (1871) 50 Vpon a base a too foot square,..a square pilaster rizing pyramidally, of a fyfteen foote hy. 1598 Florio, Pilastro, any kinde of piller or pilaster. 1603 Drayton Bar. Wars vi. xxxi, A Roome prepar'd with Pilasters,.. That to the Roofe their slender Poynts did reare. 16.. Lindesay's Chron. Scot., Contin. (1728) 233 A square low Gallery, some four Foot from the Ground, set round about with Pilley-stairs. 1613–39 I. Jones in Leoni Palladio's Archit. (1742) I. 103 The Pilaster is the Basement against the Bank of the River. 1624 Wotton Archit. in Reliq. (1651) 238 Pylasters must not be too tall and slender, lest they resemble Pillars, nor too Dwarfish and grosse, lest they imitate the Piles or Peeres of Bridges. 1670 Moral State Eng. 87 An house adorned without with various Pillars, and Pillasters of several Orders. 1715 Leoni Palladio's Archit. (1742) II. 36 The Jambs or Pilasters of the Doors. 1776 G. Semple Building in Water 11 The Piles or Pilasters, which are fixed in the River; the Arches which these Pilasters support. 1860 Emerson Cond. Life, Beauty Wks. (Bohn) II. 433 Our taste in building..refuses pilasters and columns that support nothing. |
| transf. 1875 Wonders Phys. World i. i. 39 Piles or pilasters of ground ice which supported the superficial crust. |
† 2. A pillar-like or cylindrical shape or figure.
| 1589 Puttenham Eng. Poesie ii. xi. (Arb.) 110 The Piller, Pillaster or Cillinder. 1601 Holland Pliny II. 613 They delight to cut their Berils into long rolls or pillastres in manner of cylindres [L. cylindros ex eis malunt facere]. |
3. attrib. and
Comb., as
pilaster block,
pilaster buttress,
pilaster capital,
pilaster pier,
pilaster pinnacle;
pilaster-like adj.;
pilaster-fashion,
pilaster-wise adv.;
pilaster-strip: see
quot. 1874.
| 1616 Surfl. & Markh. Country Farme 277 Fashion your battlements of what shape soeuer you please to haue them; whether made plaine, or pyllaster-wise [etc.]. 1703 T. N. City & C. Purchaser 224 Revailed or Pilaster-peers, from 10 to 14 Pounds a pair. 1727–51 Chambers Cycl. s.v. Brick, Pilaster, or buttress bricks,..are of the same dimensions with the great bricks, only they have a notch at one end, half the breadth of the brick; their use is to bind the work at the pilasters of fence-walls, which are built of great bricks. 1773 Noorthouck Hist. Lond. 599 These buttresses run up pilaster fashion. 1874 Parker Goth. Archit. Gloss. 326 Pilaster Strips, a term used to describe the vertical projecting parts of the towers supposed to be Saxon. 1879 Sir G. G. Scott Lect. Archit. I. 49 Flat, pilaster-like buttresses. |