Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A block or slab on which a pedestal, column, or statue is placed.
- n. The base block at the intersection of the baseboard and the vertical trim around an opening.
- n. A continuous course of stones supporting a wall. Also called plinth course.
- n. A square base, as for a vase.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. In architecture, the flat square table or slab under the molding of the base of a Roman or Renaissance column, of which it constitutes the foundation, and the bottom of the order; also, an abacus; also, a square molding or table at the base of any architectural part or member, or of a pedestal, etc. See phrases below, and cuts under base, column, and capital.
- n. A gymnastic apparatus, a vaulting-box, consisting of several woodensections placed on top of one another, so as to make possible variations in height.
- n. An apparatus used in therapeutic gymnastics on which the patient sits or lies.
Wiktionary
- n. A block or slab upon which a column, pedestal, or statue is based.
- n. The bottom course of stones or bricks supporting a wall.
- n. A base or pedestal beneath a cabinet.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Arch.) In classical architecture, a vertically faced member immediately below the circular base of a column; also, the lowest member of a pedestal; hence, in general, the lowest member of a base; a sub-base; a block upon which the moldings of an architrave or trim are stopped at the bottom. See
Illust. of column.
WordNet 3.0
- n. an architectural support or base (as for a column or statue)
Etymologies
- From Ancient Greek πλίνθος (plinthos, "brick") (Wiktionary)
- French plinthe, from Latin plinthus, from Greek plinthos, tile, plinth. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“On the front of the plinth is the single word 'Canada'.”
“The plinth is a reproduction of Mr. Hussein's thumbprint, and atop is a stylized reproduction, in gold, of his Arabic initials.”
“Eventually we reach our actual destination, a field where a group of 12 women are carrying baskets filled with earth and mud from the edge of a field to a destroyed homestead where a family is using the mud to rebuild the foundation - the "plinth" - of their home.”
“For 100 days, around the clock, the plinth was a small stage on which 2,400 persons, one per hour, expressed themselves.”
“The pillar is not placed in the center, but at one end of the plinth, which is the case in almost every lamp of this description yet found.”
“On one surface of the plinth is a spigot and a cup, and underneath a drip-stone, where thirsty dogs can drink.”
“But those nearer (Ralph, and George, and Rose among them) who could see not only the whole figure, but the plinth and the pedestal upon which it stood, saw that the inscription on the plinth was the same as that which had been reported as upon the first image, the one set up in the Temple at”
“The plinth, which is very massive, rises even higher above that of the west front here than it does there, and the buttresses project over 8 feet at the base and are of three stages, and the gables on these have their sides straight, their eaves everywhere continued to the wall, and their corners enriched with heads, but on the second stage only.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘plinth’.
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Muse's tacet ,to learn
Music brings silence's to raging thoughts and temperament , calm, as it is our object of definite purpose.
tacet, cadence, tempo, treble clef, penultimate, lexicon, origin, orchestra, kantele, magus, eros, coalesce and 248 more...
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• Wordies talk about themselves
Sometimes users are also persons.
llogos, peter stickles, old age, 39, insomnia, frown of approval, chuck norris, ovular, gay, fencing, rabbits, seven empty cups ... and 137 more...
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See cut under
A list of words with definitions directing us to "see cut under" (or "see cut at") another definition (with hilarity occasionally ensuing).
Compare compare-cut-under.spider, scorpion, spoonbill, spur, tooth, feather, gnat, beard, gyrate, astragal, jog, countercheck and 92 more...
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Russian Doll Words
A Russian Doll word is a word that, when you remove the first and last letters, is either the empty string, or a Russian Doll word. These are all of the 6 or more letter Russian Doll words found in...
taramea, tawings, tchicks, timider, tirades, tirings, towings, trailed, trailer, trained, trainee, trainer and 2373 more...
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phrontistery - p
from phrontistery.info
pustule, purulence, pushful, purser, purpureal, putative, purpure, purpresture, purloin, purline, purlieu, purlicue and 1766 more...
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Words build meanings from origins( et...
These come from gamma meditation ,I think.
discursive, exogenous, machinations, purportedly, sumptuous, congruity, cantankerous, incongruous, festoon, hessian, ratiocinative, stratigraphic and 2046 more...
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Philosophic , etymology
every major discipline has uniquely developed esoteric nomenclature to facilitate interdisciplinary dissemination
quale , qualia, elegy, tacet, lexicon, annunciate, caste, eros, contrive, purlicue, irony, venacular, dilapidate and 567 more...
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Top 500 Shower Curtains
Favorite designs for shower curtains. Inspired by the list Top 500 SAT Words Shower Curtain by jwjarvis.
goldfish, tan stripes, blue stripes, bubbles, map of the world, postcard holder, bacon, mariachis, sushi, palm fronds, periodic table of..., blue circles and 283 more...
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Sound Effects You Didn't Know You Needed
Lesser-known onomatopoeias (or things that sound like they ought to be onomatopoeias but aren't), ripe for use in parodies of the Adam West Batman series.
gloomth, spilth, glunch, flub, spramp, sough, gorp, guff, tump, kerrang, bork, flan and 12 more...
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plans for the weekend
No new unlisted words/phrases, please! Only list existing ones.
ruddy with booze ..., I go out horking...., attend pubs that ..., harvest kidneys, bowling balls, chandeliers, lampshade, Saran Wrap, croodle, kite, anal thermometer,..., plinth and 44 more...
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Columniation
A list of terms pertaining to columns employed in architecture.
hypostyle, peristyle, columniation, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, base, shaft, capital, entablature, architrave, frieze and 78 more...
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That's what she said and other spoken...
Once you start saying them, you can't seem to stop.
dude, cha-ching, meep, whatever, wha happen, that's what she said, talk to the hand, really?!, plinth, awesome, seriously?, ridonkulous and 3 more...
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Words or Phrases I Should Use In My N...
So I've always kind of eschewed the notion of producing 50,000 words of crap in a single month, but somehow something possessed me to try for it this year. Add stuff to this list and I promise I'll...
you're something ..., sticky rice, plinth, educable, resplendent, albinism, bowling pin, tappen, emerod, Hottentottenpoten..., heady, handlebar mustache and 19 more...
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[Open] Excellent Potential Cat Names
Please use the lowercase form of words that don’t usually appear as proper names (unless the word should be capitalized for other reasons). Words that are used primarily or exclusively as names (e...
domovoi, домово́й, Schroedinger, Feral, debulition, zenzizenzizenzic, Schrödinger, zenzizenzic, snarf, crepuscular ray, crepusculum, hell and 26 more...
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OvoloOvoloOvoloOvoloOvoloOvolo
Decorative trims and moldings and their elements, from room-scale to whole-building-scale, including, of course, ovolo.
egg and dart, echinus, drip cap, fluting fillet, rosette, scotia, screen molding, picture rail, chair rail, quarter-round, crown molding, bandelet and 56 more...
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rolls off the tongue
Words you love saying because they feel and sound so good!
(Not to be conflated with words you love saying because they are onomatopoeic, I have another list for that)gubernatorial, predeliction, quibbling, propensity, proclivity, insidious, nebulous, garble, crabapple, piddling, prattle, wheedling and 11 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for plinth.

blafferty Plinth sighting!
It looked like a bathysphere: a ball of riveted metal, two meters in diameter, with a single porthole on one side. It stood on a low plinth, braced by struts. Cables were plugged into it all over its surface. -- The Black Lung Captain by Chris Wooding Mar 31, 2012
reesetee I feel glad that it's out there and that you feel powerful. :-) Jul 10, 2011
milosrdenstvi Happened to walk past this same park again today. The word was still there. I feel powerful. Jul 8, 2011
reesetee Milos, that's excellent! If Wordnik were a photo, that would be it. :-)
Okay, that would be one of them.... Jun 28, 2011
blafferty Whoops. Sorry. Plinth-love, not plith-love. Jun 28, 2011
ruzuzu Why didn't I think of that? *wanders off to find some chalk* Jun 17, 2011
milosrdenstvi I always keep a piece of chalk in my backpack in case of situations just like this one. Didn't occur to me to stand on; I'd just got in on the overnight train and in fact spent the next hour asleep on the bench visible. Jun 17, 2011
yarb Nice. Did you stand on the plinth for a while? Jun 17, 2011
ruzuzu I like it! (I assume you used chalk, Milos.) Jun 17, 2011
milosrdenstvi Did this the other day in Tbilisi. Jun 17, 2011
sionnach I'd erect a sculpture of a pumpkin, vomiting with dignity. Jun 10, 2011
yarb I'm sorry that sionnach's excellent conversation-starter dropped dead in the water "almost 2 years ago".
I'd make rude gestures in a languid fashion. Jun 10, 2011
bilby Surely everything exists below marsupials, ruzuzu.
plith-love...see, you're doing it wrong. This is no blaffing matter. Jun 10, 2011
reesetee It's a serious word? Jun 10, 2011
blafferty After reading all this plith-love, I can no longer take this word seriously. Jun 10, 2011
reesetee How elegant! Feb 6, 2011
ruzuzu Neck Plinth design (look just below the "Marsupial"). Feb 6, 2011
Prolagus :) Jan 24, 2011
reesetee Gotta give credit to a band that uses "plinth" in its lyrics. :-) Jan 19, 2011
Prolagus
(Don't carry it all, by the Decemberists) Jan 19, 2011
ruzuzu Plinth! Jun 18, 2010
manilamac I have just encountered this word as a substitute for “template” (almost) or perhaps foundation—but in the technological sense. For instance, building a complex piece of software on such a lowly plinth. Aug 19, 2009
reesetee Plinth. Plinth plinthity plinth. Jul 24, 2009
chained_bear plinth plinth plinth plinth... ahhh, mouthfeel... Jul 24, 2009
sionnach What would you do on the Fourth Plinth? Jul 7, 2009
reesetee Sayth who? Jul 6, 2009
bilby Yeth. Jun 19, 2009
jfk Lisp-inducing. Jun 19, 2009
bilby "Devonport's controversial 'Spirit of the Sea' statue will be officially launched tomorrow, but the artist who created it says he is unlikely to be there. Aden McLeod formerly of Devonport and now living in North Queensland, says he was invited, but he is too traumatised by his experience to attend. The five-metre nude bronze statue was installed on its plinth at the mouth of the Mersey River yesterday."
- Statue divides a city, abc.net.au, 28 Feb 2009. Feb 28, 2009
reesetee Wow, an earworm that isn't a song...eyeworm?
Plinth! Nov 14, 2007
mollusque Positively plinthiform! I think we've discovered a monosyllabic earworm.
Plinth. Plinth, plinth, plinth. Nov 14, 2007
reesetee It is plinthific, wouldn't you say? Nov 14, 2007
mollusque This is scary, reesetee. I was just thinking "plinth, I love saying that word". I went to put it on my list of favorites and what do I find? "Plinth. Plinth. Plinth." Indeed! Nov 14, 2007
reesetee Well, if I'd known it would have that effect.... ;-) Oct 17, 2007
npydyuan Wow. What an exquisite image. Oct 17, 2007
yarb Someone told me this was the sexiest word a woman could say, and I subsequently realised she was right.
When you say plinth, your lips first press together gently, then part; the tongue peeks seductively out from under the teeth, then the ‘th’ sound is softly breathed through the invitingly open lips. Oct 17, 2007
reesetee Plinth. I just love saying this word. Plinth. Plinth. Plinth. Oct 16, 2007
sonofgroucho This plinth is shaped like King George IV of the UK. Oct 3, 2007