pedestal

plural pedestals

1. architectureThe base or foot of a column, statue, vase, lamp.

   The state reached a deal with the city to remove the 40-foot granite pedestal the Lee statue sat on for more than a century.

   2021 December 15, Ami Vera, Artemis Moshtaghian, “Virginia to begin removal process of Robert E. Lee statue pedestal in Richmond, governor says”, in CNN, archived from the original on 12 Jun 2025

   1 more example

   The table and two base pedestals cost more than $4,000. The pedestals are described as having “hand applied ebonized inlay with bell flowers topped by hand carved scrolls and a fluted column.”

   2018 February 28, Rene Marsh, Ross Levitt, “See HUD’s $31,000 mahogany dining set”, in CNN, archived from the original on 02 Dec 2022

2. figurativelyA place of reverence or honor.

   He has put his mother on a pedestal. You can't say a word against her.

   2 more examples

   It’s an old, old story. We’ve all placed people on pedestals, and then, almost inevitably, they let us down. They violate our trust. They betray us. They fall off the pedestal, or we remove them.

   2012 August 31, Todd Leopold, “When the hero falls off the pedestal”, in CNN, archived from the original on 13 Oct 2022

   But India is also where the Mahatma may have fallen furthest from the pedestal.

   2019 October 2, Lauren Frayer, “Gandhi Is Deeply Revered, But His Attitudes On Race And Sex Are Under Scrutiny”, in NPR, archived from the original on 06 Apr 2020

3. rail transportA casting secured to the frame of a truck of a railcar and forming a jaw for holding a journal box.
4. engineeringA pillow block; a low housing.
5. bridge buildingAn iron socket, or support, for the foot of a brace at the end of a truss where it rests on a pier.
6. steam heatinga pedestal coil, group of connected straight pipes arranged side by side and one above another, used in a radiator.
7. communicationsA ground-level housing for a passive connection point for underground cables.
8. businessThe measured value when no input signal is given.
9. aeronauticsThe central part of the cockpit, between the pilots, where various controls are located.
10. artsAn item upon which television cameras are mounted.
11. The tough protuberant pad covering a dromedary's sternum, which, when the camel lies down, causes the abdomen to be slightly above the hot ground.

present singular third person pedestals · US participle present pedestaling · UK participle present pedestalling · US participle past pedestaled · US past pedestaled · UK participle past pedestalled · UK past pedestalled

1. To set or support on (or as if on) a pedestal.