pinnacle

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   raise on or as if on a pinnacle

   I did not want to be pinnacled.

2. 2
   verb

   surmount with a pinnacle

   pinnacle a pediment

3. 3
   noun

   A tall, sharp and craggy rock or mountain.

   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.

4. 4
   noun

   An all-time high; a point of greatest achievement or success.

   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).

5. 5
   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.

   Some renowned metropolis / With glistering spires and pinnacles around.

6. 6
   verb

   To place on a pinnacle.

   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.

7. 7
   verb

   To build or furnish with a pinnacle or pinnacles.

   The pediment of the Southern Transept is pinnacled, not inelegantly, with a flourished cross

8. 8
   noun

   (architecture) a slender upright spire at the top of a buttress of tower

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.