The Collaborative International Dictionary
Electrolier \E*lec`tro*lier"\, n. [Formed from electric in imitation of chandelier.] A branching frame, often of ornamental design, to support electric illuminating lamps.
Wiktionary
n. A fixture, usually hanging from the ceiling, for holding electric lamps.
Wikipedia
Electrolier was the name for a fixture, usually pendent from the ceiling, for holding electric lamps. The word is analogous to chandelier, from which it was formed. For a fine poetical if somewhat confusing description of such a lamp in a Metropolitan Railway ("Early Electric") station dining room, see Sir John Betjeman's poem "The Metropolitan Railway - Baker Street Station Buffet" from his collection "A Few Late Chrysanthemums" (1954): "Early Electric! With what radiant hope / Men formed this many-branched electrolier, / Twisted the flex around the iron rope / And let the dazzling vacuum globes hang clear, / And then with hearts the rich contrivance fill’d / Of copper, beaten by the Bromsgrove Guild."
Image:Sheffield Town Hall grand staircase.jpg|Electrolier in the Grand Staircase of Sheffield Town Hall, England FarmersBank-Owatonna-1910.jpg|Electrolier in the National Farmer's Bank of Owatonna, Minnesota Postcard ca. 1910 Electrolier.JPG|1894 bronze electrolier with 45 branches in Pullman Memorial Universalist Church, Albion, NY
Category:Light fixtures
Usage examples of "electrolier".
He then turned out all the lights in the room with the exception of the center electrolier, that shone down directly on the handkerchief and ring.
In the center, under the ceiling electrolier, was a table of polished mahogany on which lay a handkerchief covering two small objects.
As she sank into the chair the light from the electrolier fell on her shoulders and on the carefully coiled and banded hair, so laboriously built up into a crown that glinted nut-brown above the pale face she turned to the man watching her.
The woman under the white light of the electrolier drew back from Keenan, with her eyes still on his face, so that her head and shoulders stood out, a target of black against the white fore-ground.
Venus, really an electrolier, held an apple of golden glass in a gracefully outstretched hand.
Margaret sought out a small bundle tied to the electrolier on the right hand side of the hall.
In the glittering electrolier wires mingled with pipes and bulbs with globes.
The floor was a highly polished black, reflecting the great, glittering electroliers, each one a crystalline complexity, suspended from the shallow dome of the ceiling, which was decorated with ornate bas-reliefs in a floral pattern.
The walls were windowless, the light being shed down from twelve heavily ornamented electroliers, each containing a cluster of thirty lamps.
Covertly opening that eye which remained in the heavy shadow, separating the lashes by little more than the width of a hair, he could make out a large room, upholstered and carpeted in green, with green-shaded electroliers above two billiard tables that stood ghastly and bier-like beneath their blanketing covers of white cotton.
Passion crackled through the air like the electricity sparking through the electroliers that lit the hall.
The floor was a highly polished black, reflecting the great, glittering electroliers, each one a crystalline complexity, suspended from the shallow dome of the ceiling, which was decorated with ornate bas-reliefs in a floral pattern.