The Collaborative International Dictionary
Acroterium \Ac`ro*te`ri*um\ (-[u^]m), n.; pl. Acroteria. [L., fr. Gr. 'akrwth`rion summit, fr. 'a`kros topmost.] (Arch.)
One of the small pedestals, for statues or other ornaments, placed on the apex and at the basal angles of a pediment. Acroteria are also sometimes placed upon the gables in Gothic architecture.
--J. H. Parker.One of the pedestals, for vases or statues, forming a part roof balustrade.
Wiktionary
n. 1 (context architecture English) One of the small pedestals, for statues or other ornaments, placed on the apex and at the basal angles of a pediment, or upon the gables in Gothic architecture. 2 One of the pedestals, for vases or statues, forming a part roof balustrade.
Usage examples of "acroterium".
An ever present feature, also, is the palmette acroterium, treated in conventional ceramic style.
The acroteria, painted in black and red on the natural surface of poros stone, take the shape of palmettes and lotuses.
If then there are reasons for finding the origin of pedimental decoration in a plane or low-relief composition of terracotta, made more effective both by a framing of like material and technic, and by the acroteria at either extremity and above, then the process of development which leads at length to the pediments at Aegina and the Parthenon becomes at once easy and natural.