Crossword clues for pinnacle
pinnacle
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Pinnacle \Pin"na*cle\, n. [OE. pinacle, F. pinacle, L. pinnaculum, fr. pinna pinnacle, feather. See Pin a peg.]
-
(Arch.) An architectural member, upright, and generally ending in a small spire, -- used to finish a buttress, to constitute a part in a proportion, as where pinnacles flank a gable or spire, and the like. Pinnacles may be considered primarily as added weight, where it is necessary to resist the thrust of an arch, etc.
Some renowned metropolis With glistering spires and pinnacles around.
--Milton. -
Anything resembling a pinnacle; a lofty peak; a pointed summit.
Three silent pinnacles of aged snow.
--Tennyson.The slippery tops of human state, The gilded pinnacles of fate.
--Cowley.
Pinnacle \Pin"na*cle\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Pinnacled; p. pr. &
vb. n. Pinnacling.]
To build or furnish with a pinnacle or pinnacles.
--T.
Warton.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
c.1300, "mountain, peak, promontory," from Old French pinacle "top, gable" (13c.) and directly from Late Latin pinnaculum "peak, pinnacle, gable," diminutive of Latin pinna "peak, point," (see pin (n.1)). Figurative use is attested from c.1400.
Wiktionary
n. 1 The highest point. 2 A tall, sharp and craggy rock or mountain. 3 (context figuratively English) An all-time high; a point of greatest achievement or success. 4 (context architecture English) An upright member, generally ending in a small spire, used to finish a buttress, to constitute a part in a proportion, as where pinnacles flank a gable or spire. vb. 1 to put something on a pinnacle 2 to build or furnish with a pinnacle or pinnacles
WordNet
n. (architecture) a slender upright spire at the top of a buttress of tower
the highest level or degree attainable; "his landscapes were deemed the acme of beauty"; "the artist's gifts are at their acme"; "at the height of her career"; "the peak of perfection"; "summer was at its peak"; "...catapulted Einstein to the pinnacle of fame"; "the summit of his ambition"; "so many highest superlatives achieved by man"; "at the top of his profession" [syn: acme, height, elevation, peak, summit, superlative, top]
a lofty peak
v. surmount with a pinnacle; "pinnacle a pediment"
raise on or as if on a pinnacle; "He did not want to be pinnacled"
Wikipedia
A pinnacle is an architectural ornament originally forming the cap or crown of a buttress or small turret, but afterwards used on parapets at the corners of towers and in many other situations. The pinnacle looks like a small spire. It was mainly used in Gothic architecture.
The pinnacle had two purposes:
- Ornamental – adding to the loftiness and verticity of the structure. They sometimes ended with statues, such as in Milan Cathedral.
- Structural – the pinnacles were very heavy and often rectified with lead, in order to enable the flying buttresses to contain the stress of the structure vaults and roof. This was done by adding compressive stress (a result of the pinnacle weight) to the thrust vector and thus shifting it downwards rather than sideway.
A pinnacle is an architectural feature. It can also refer to:
Pinnacle was a weekend news program that aired weekly on CNN from 1982 until 2003.
Pinnacle is the first album that Irv Williams released not under his own name but as the Irv Williams Trio, on which Irv Williams on tenor saxophone is joined by long-time partner Billy Peterson on bass and Steve Blons on guitar. Its official release date is July 6, 2015 (see 2015 in music).
The Special Edition of Pinnacle is consisting of 13 musical tracks and highlights of an exclusive conversation, split into 6 segments, between the jazz saxophonist and late jazz broadcaster Leigh Kamman, whose career spanned over 6 decades conducting thousands of interviews with the “jazz who’s who”. This historic conversation gives insight into some rare musical history and a few funny stories. This conversation became Kamman´s last recorded interview as he past away in October 2014.
Usage examples of "pinnacle".
The buttresses are also ornamented with blind arches, and appear never to have been finished, as they are truncated in an unusual way where one would expect pinnacles.
Guzman Bento, usually full of fanciful fears and brooding suspicions, had sudden accesses of unreasonable self-confidence when he perceived himself elevated on a pinnacle of power and safety beyond the reach of mere mortal plotters.
Thus while the busy dame bustled about the house or plied her spinning-wheel at one end of the piazza, honest Balt would sit smoking his evening pipe at the other, watching the achievements of a little wooden warrior who, armed with a sword in each hand, was most valiantly fighting the wind on the pinnacle of the barn.
Death throes that, within a few centuries, will mean the extinction of biological life within a light-year or so of that star for the majestic Matrioshka brains, though they are the pinnacles of sentient civilization, are intrinsically hostile environments for fleshy life.
From this pinnacle of elation and pride they were precipitated to the abyss of despondence or dejection, by the account of the miscarriage at St.
The panoply of thermonuclear weapons, effectively gathered at the pinnacle of Empire, represents the continuous possibility of the destruction of life itself.
All of jasper is that temple, and covering an acre of ground with its walls and courts, its seven pinnacled towers, and its inner shrine where the river enters through hidden channels and the god sings softly in the night.
On a hill in the centre rose a sixteen-angled tower greater than all the rest and bearing a high pinnacled belfry resting on a flattened dome.
Temple of the Elder Ones with its sixteen carven sides, its flattened dome, and its lofty pinnacled belfry, overtopping all else, and majestic whatever its foreground.
And down this vast gulf upon which we were pinnacled the great draught dashed and roared, driving clouds and misty wreaths of vapour before it, till we were nearly blinded, and utterly confused.
The world waits only the news of a revolution of Germany to see the tyrants who have pinnacled themselves on its supineness precipitated into the ruin from which they shall never arise.
Exhausted, breathless, their shaken heads they laid, braided and pinnacled by glossycombed, against the counterledge.
She tilted her head back and saw, beyond the pinnacles of trees taller than the towers of Dacia, stars as cold and beautiful and incomprehensible as Serre itself poured across the black.
Across a, small grassy valley, which was already beginning to fill with the reddish-brown mist of sunset, there was a square tower on a tall spiny pinnacle of rock.
I should scarce suppose even a demon would act so, were there not many with hearts more depraved even than those of fiends, who first have torn some unsophisticated soul from the pinnacle of excellence, on which it sat smiling, and then triumphed in their hellish victory when it writhed in agonized remorse, and strove to hide its unavailing regret in the dust from which the fabric of her virtues had arisen.