Finial

Quick meaning: Finial is a noun meaning (figurative, also attributive) The completion or end of something.

Meaning

(figurative, also attributive) The completion or end of something.

More Meanings

1. (architecture) Especially in Gothic architecture: an ornament, often in the form of a bunch or knot of foliage, on the peak of the gable of a roof, a pediment, a pinnacle, etc.
2. (by extension) Any decorative fitting on the corner, end, or top of an object such as a canopy, a fencepost, a flagpole, a curtain rod, or the newel post of a staircase.

Example Sentences

The steep slate roofs were topped with bronze finials so tall and fanciful they looked like drops of liquid sliding down a thread.

[O]f that money vvhich aroſe of their amercements, vvere certain gilded ſhields made, vvhich vvere ſet up on the finial or lantern of Jupiters Temple.

From this fair Palace then he takes his Front, / From that his Finials; […] / And ſo, ſelecting euery vvhere the beſt, / Doth thirty Models in one Houſe digeſt.

Truth uncompromisingly told will always have its ragged edges; hence the conclusion of such a narration is apt to be less finished than an architectural finial.

Word Forms

• finials

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include epi, fastigium, fronton, frontoon, facet, folly.

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