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column

Pronunciation: /ˈkɒləm/

The English word “column” has 9 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. A solid upright structure designed usually to support a larger structure above it, such as a roof or horizontal beam, but sometimes for decoration.
  2. A vertical line of entries in a table, usually read from top to bottom.
  3. A body of troops or army vehicles, usually strung out along a road.
  4. A body of text meant to be read line by line, especially in printed material that has multiple adjacent such on a single page.
  5. A unit of width, especially of advertisements, in a periodical, equivalent to the width of a usual column of text.
  6. A recurring feature in a periodical, especially an opinion piece, especially by a single author or small rotating group of authors, or on a single theme.
  7. Something having similar vertical form or structure to the things mentioned above, such as a spinal column.
  8. The gynostemium.
  9. An instrument used to separate the different components of a liquid or to purify chemical compounds.

Etymology

From Middle English columne, columpne, columpe, borrowed from Old French columne, from Latin columna (“a column, pillar, post”), originally a collateral form of columen, contraction culmen (“a pillar, top, crown, summit”). Akin to Latin collis (“a hill”), celsus (“high”), probably to Ancient Greek κολοφών (kolophṓn, “top, summit”).

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.