pedestal
/ˈpɛdɪstəl/
pedestal noun: the base or foot of a column, statue, vase, lamp.
Noun
pedestal (plural pedestals)
- The base or foot of a column, statue, vase, lamp.
- The table and two base pedestals cost more than $4,000. The pedestals are described as having “hand applied ebonized inlay with bell flowers topped by hand carved scrolls and a fluted column.”2018 February 28, Rene Marsh, Ross Levitt, “See HUD’s $31,000 mahogany dining set”, in CNN, archived from the original on 02 Dec 2022
- The state reached a deal with the city to remove the 40-foot granite pedestal the Lee statue sat on for more than a century.2021 December 15, Ami Vera, Artemis Moshtaghian, “Virginia to begin removal process of Robert E. Lee statue pedestal in Richmond, governor says”, in CNN, archived from the original on 12 Jun 2025
- A place of reverence or honor.
- He has put his mother on a pedestal. You can't say a word against her.
- It’s an old, old story. We’ve all placed people on pedestals, and then, almost inevitably, they let us down. They violate our trust. They betray us. They fall off the pedestal, or we remove them.2012 August 31, Todd Leopold, “When the hero falls off the pedestal”, in CNN, archived from the original on 13 Oct 2022
- A casting secured to the frame of a truck of a railcar and forming a jaw for holding a journal box.
- A pillow block; a low housing.
- An iron socket, or support, for the foot of a brace at the end of a truss where it rests on a pier.
- a pedestal coil, group of connected straight pipes arranged side by side and one above another, used in a radiator.
- A ground-level housing for a passive connection point for underground cables.
- The measured value when no input signal is given.
- The central part of the cockpit, between the pilots, where various controls are located.
- An item upon which television cameras are mounted.
- The tough protuberant pad covering a dromedary's sternum, which, when the camel lies down, causes the abdomen to be slightly above the hot ground.
Verb
pedestal (third-person singular simple present pedestals, present participle (US) pedestaling or (UK) pedestalling, simple past and past participle (US) pedestaled or (UK) pedestalled)
- To set or support on (or as if on) a pedestal.
pedestal meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Telugu
pedestal in Tamil
- பீடம்
pedestal in Urdu
- pedestal
- اساس asās
pedestal in Bengali
- মূর্তি, স্তম্ভের নিচের পাদপীঠ
pedestal in Telugu
- pedestal, stand
- చట్టము caṭṭamu
More languagesFewer languages
- pedestal in Malayalam
- പീഠം pīṭhaṁ
- pedestal in Kannada
- ಆಧಾರ ಪೀಠ, ಪಾದ ಪೀಠ, ಅಸ್ತಿಭಾರ, ತಳಪಾಯ
- pedestal in Gujarati
- પેડેસ્ટલ, પેડેસ્ટાલ
- pedestal in Sanskrit
- वेदि védi
- pedestal in Arabic
- عَمُود ʕamūd, حامِل ḥāmil, مِنَصَّة minaṣṣa
- pedestal in Persian
- پایه pâye
- pedestal in Thai
- แท่น tɛ̂n
- pedestal in Vietnamese
- bệ
Examples of pedestal in a sentence
- A column rests on its pedestal.
- Men shove statues off pedestals, and use hammers and drills to destroy what’s left.
- The girls who had tormented me in high school had fallen, hard, from their pedestals.
Forms of pedestal
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | pedestals |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | pedestals |
| present participle US | pedestaling |
| present participle UK | pedestalling |
| past participle US | pedestaled |
| past US | pedestaled |
| past participle UK | pedestalled |
| past UK | pedestalled |
Origin of pedestal
Borrowed from Middle French piédestal, itself borrowed from Italian piedistallo (literally “foot stand”). Spelling influenced by Latin pēs, pedem.
Words formed from pedestal
Phrases with pedestal
- pedestal fans
- pedestal coils
- pedestal drills
- pedestal servers
- set on a pedestal
- pedestal computers
- puts on a pedestal
- sets on a pedestal
- pedestal telephones
- place on a pedestal
- placed on a pedestal
- places on a pedestal
3 more phrasesFewer phrases
Questions about pedestal
- What does pedestal mean?
- Pedestal means the base or foot of a column, statue, vase, lamp.
- What is pedestal in Tamil?
- Pedestal in Tamil is பீடம். See Pedestal meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is pedestal?
- Pedestal can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce pedestal?
- Pedestal is pronounced /ˈpɛdɪstəl/.
- What is the plural of pedestal?
- The plural of pedestal is pedestals.
Words near pedestal in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: pedestal (page history and authors); pedestal (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); اساس (Urdu) (page history and authors); pedestal (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); చట్టము (Telugu) (page history and authors); പീഠം (Malayalam) (page history and authors); pedestal (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); pedestal (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); वेदि (Sanskrit) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-pedestal.wav.
Cite this entry: “pedestal.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pedestal. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.