Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun An elevated platform, lectern, or stand used in preaching or conducting a religious service.
  • noun Clerics considered as a group.
  • noun The ministry of preaching.
  • noun An elevated metal guardrail extending around the bow or stern of a yacht or other small vessel.
  • noun An elevated platform, such as one used by harpooners in a whaling boat.
  • noun A bully pulpit.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A rostrum or elevated platform from which a speaker addresses an audience or delivers an oration; specifically, in the Christian church, an elevated and more or less inclosed platform from which the preacher delivers his sermon and, in churches of many denominations, conducts the service.
  • noun A bow of iron lashed to the end of the bowsprit of a whaling-vessel, and forming a support for the waist of the harpooner, to insure his safety.
  • Of or pertaining to the pulpit or preachers and their teaching: as, pulpit eloquence; pulpit utterances.
  • noun In mech.: The elevated platform or gallery from which the operation of a large central electrical station for power or lighting is supervised.
  • noun A raised platform on which the operator of a machine stands so that he may oversee the machine as it works, or the process as it advances.
  • To place in or supply with a pulpit.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun An elevated place, or inclosed stage, in a church, in which the clergyman stands while preaching.
  • noun The whole body of the clergy; preachers as a class; also, preaching.
  • noun A desk, or platform, for an orator or public speaker.
  • adjective Of or pertaining to the pulpit, or preaching

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A raised platform in a church, usually enclosed, where the minister or preacher stands to conduct the sermon.
  • noun nautical The railing at the bow of a boat, which sometimes extends past the deck. It is sometimes referred to as bow pulpit. The railing at the stern of the boat is sometimes referred to as as stern pulpit; other texts use the perhaps more appropriate term pushpit.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a platform raised above the surrounding level to give prominence to the person on it

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old French, from Late Latin pulpitum, from Latin, wooden platform.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin pulpitum ("platform").

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Examples

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  • Eager to parlay his public pulpit into political capital, Aa Gym insisted that the perils of pornography could only be overcome by cultivating one’s sense of shame.

    Vicissitudes of Vision: Piety, Pornography, and Shaming the State in Indonesia

    JAMES BOURK HOESTEREY

    Visual Anthropological Review

    10.1111/var.12105

    March 1, 2018