Column
noun ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 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 (architecture) a tall vertical cylindrical structure standing upright and used to support a structure wordnet
- 3 A vertical line of entries in a table, usually read from top to bottom.
- 4 a vertical cylindrical structure standing alone and not supporting anything (such as a monument) wordnet
- 5 A body of troops or army vehicles, usually strung out along a road.
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- 6 a vertical glass tube used in column chromatography; a mixture is poured in the top and washed through a stationary substance where components of the mixture are adsorbed selectively to form colored bands wordnet
- 7 A body of text meant to be read line by line, especially in printed material that has multiple adjacent such on a single page.
"It was too hard to read the text across the whole page, so I split it into two columns."
- 8 any tubular or pillar-like supporting structure in the body wordnet
- 9 A unit of width, especially of advertisements, in a periodical, equivalent to the width of a usual column of text.
"Each column inch costs $300 a week; this ad is four columns by three inches, so will run $3600 a week."
- 10 a page or text that is vertically divided wordnet
- 11 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. broadly
"His initial foray into print media was as the author of a weekly column in his elementary-school newspaper."
- 12 an article giving opinions or perspectives wordnet
- 13 Something having similar vertical form or structure to the things mentioned above, such as a spinal column.
"The desert storm was riding in its strength; the travellers lay beneath the mastery of the fell simoom. Whirling wreaths and columns of burning wind, rushed around and over them."
- 14 a line of units following one after another wordnet
- 15 The gynostemium
- 16 a vertical array of numbers or other information wordnet
- 17 An instrument used to separate the different components of a liquid or to purify chemical compounds.
- 18 anything that approximates the shape of a column or tower wordnet
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"The geyser sends up a column of hot water every two hours."
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”).