caryatid
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A day or two after Mrs. March had met Mrs. Adding, she went with her husband to revere a certain magnificent blackamoor whom he had discovered at the entrance of one of the aristocratic hotels on the Schlossberg, where he performed the function of a kind of caryatid, and looked, in the black of his skin and the white of his flowing costume, like a colossal figure carved in ebony and ivory.
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American Heritage Dictionary (1)
- noun Architecture A supporting column sculptured in the form of a draped female figure.
Century Dictionary (2)
GNU Webster's 1913 (1)
WordNet (1)
Elsewhere on the web
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- With a concha on her head, she would look like a caryatid. — Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth
- The visitor had flopped onto the caryatid-pillared bed. — The Shadow Of The Lion
- This was like acting as a caryatid to several sacks of soggy sand. — A Body In The Bath House
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Sometimes it may be called a caryatid, which is, as I understand it, a cruel device of architecture, representing a man or a woman, obliged to hold up upon his or her head or shoulders a structure which they did not build, and which could stand just as well without as with them.
— The Complete Project Gutenberg Writings of Charles Dudley Warner -
A day or two after Mrs. March had met Mrs. Adding, she went with her husband to revere a certain magnificent blackamoor whom he had discovered at the entrance of one of the aristocratic hotels on the Schlossberg, where he performed the function of a kind of caryatid, and looked, in the black of his skin and the white of his flowing costume, like a colossal figure carved in ebony and ivory.
— Their Silver Wedding Journey — Volume 2
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View all »Etymologies (3)
American Heritage Dictionary (1)
- From Latin Caryātides, caryatids, from Greek Karuātides, priestesses of Artemis at Caryae, caryatids, from Karuai, Caryae, a village of Laconia in southern Greece with a famous temple to Artemis.
Century Dictionary (1)
GNU Webster's 1913 (1)
WordNet
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Pronunciations
/ (kărˌē-ătˈĭd)/
ahd pronounces "caryatid"
by
American Heritage Dictionary