pinnacle
/ˈpɪnəkəl/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.45 in modern English
12
Scrabble Score
8
Letters
3
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
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.
name
A locality in the Weddin council area, central New South Wales, Australia.
Example Sentences
- "Kings, who remain in many respects the representatives of a vanished world, solitary pinnacles that topple over the rising waste of waters under which the past lies buried."
- "The pinnacle of the effort to fix restrictive meanings to a set of terminology can be found in two papers in American Speech by Feinsilver (1979, 1980)."
- "Some renowned metropolis / With glistering spires and pinnacles around."
- "In the city’s midst the gleaming marble of a thousand steps climbed to the citadel where arose four pinnacles beckoning to heaven, and midmost between the pinnacles there stood the dome, vast, as the gods had dreamed it."
- "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 pediment of the Southern Transept is pinnacled, not inelegantly, with a flourished cross"
Etymology
From Middle English, borrowed from Old French pinacle, pinnacle, from Late Latin pinnāculum (“a peak, pinnacle”), from Latin pinna (“a pinnacle”); see pin. Doublet of panache.