obelisk

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A tall, four-sided shaft of stone, usually tapered and monolithic, that rises to a pointed pyramidal top.
2. n. Printing The dagger sign (†), used especially as a reference mark. Also called dagger, obelus.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A tapering shaft of rectangular plan, generally finished with a pyramidal apex. The apex in the typical obelisks of ancient Egypt was sheathed with a bronze cap. The proportion of the thickness to the height is nearly the same in all Egyptian obelisks — that is, between one ninth and one tenth; and the thickness at the top is never less than half nor greater than three fourths of the thickness at the base. Egypt abounded with obelisks, which were set up to record the honors or triumphs of the kings; and many have been removed thence, in both ancient and modern times. The two largest were erected by Sesostris in Heliopolis; the height of these was 78 feet; they were removed to Rome by Augustus. Two obelisks in Alexandria, known as Cleopatra's Needles, were offered by Mehemet Ali to Great Britain and France respectively. The French chose instead the Luxor obelisk, which was erected in the Place de la Concorde in Paris in 1833. That chosen by the British lay prostrate in the sand until it was removed and erected on the Thames embankment in London, in 1878, by private enterprise. Its height is 68 feet 5½ inches, and its dimensions at the base are 7 feet 10½ inches by 7 feet 5 inches. The companion obelisk was afterward presented to the city of New York, where it now stands in Central Park, having been transported thither in 1880 by private enterprise.
2. n. In printing and writing, a sign resembling a small dagger (), and hence also called a dagger. It was formerly employed in editions of ancient authors to point out and censure spurious or doubtful passages, and for like purposes, but is now generally used as a reference-mark to direct the reader to a marginal note or foot-note on the same page, in dictionaries to distinguish obsolete words, or before dates in biographical or historical works of reference to indicate the year of death. The double obelisk is a mark of reference of the form ‡.

Wiktionary

1. n. A tall, square, tapered, stone monolith topped with a pyramidal point, frequently used as a monument.
2. n. printing The dagger sign (†), especially when used as a reference mark.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. An upright, four-sided pillar, gradually tapering as it rises, and terminating in a pyramid called pyramidion. It is ordinarily monolithic. Egyptian obelisks are commonly covered with hieroglyphic writing from top to bottom.
2. n. (Print.) A mark of reference; -- called also dagger [†]. See Dagger, n., 2.
3. v. To mark or designate with an obelisk.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a character used in printing to indicate a cross reference or footnote
2. n. a stone pillar having a rectangular cross section tapering towards a pyramidal top