Pavilion

//pəˈvɪljən// name, noun, verb

name, noun, verb ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    An ornate tent.
  2. 2
    large and often sumptuous tent wordnet
  3. 3
    A light roofed structure used as a shelter in a public place.
  4. 4
    A structure, sometimes temporary, erected to house exhibits at a fair, etc.
  5. 5
    The building where the players change clothes, wait to bat, and eat their meals.

    "Only one player has hit a six over the Lord's pavillion."

Show 8 more definitions
  1. 6
    A detached or semi-detached building at a hospital or other building complex.
  2. 7
    The lower surface of a brilliant-cut gemstone, lying between the girdle and collet.
  3. 8
    The cartiliginous part of the outer ear; auricle.
  4. 9
    The fimbriated extremity of the Fallopian tube.
  5. 10
    A flag, ensign, or banner.
  6. 11
    A flag, ensign, or banner.; A flag or ensign carried at the gaff of the mizzenmast.
  7. 12
    An ornate tent, used either as a charge or bearing, or surrounding a shield as or atop the mantling.
  8. 13
    A covering; a canopy; figuratively, the sky.

    "For after the rain when with never a stain, / The pavilion of heaven is bare, […]"

Verb
  1. 1
    To furnish with a pavilion. transitive
  2. 2
    To put inside a pavilion. transitive
  3. 3
    To enclose or surround (after Robert Grant's hymn line "pavilioned in splendour, And girded with praise"). figuratively, transitive
Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A community and Indian reserve in Squamish-Lillooet Regional District, British Columbia, Canada.
  2. 2
    A town and census-designated place therein, in Genesee County, New York, United States.

Synonyms

All synonyms
auricleauricleboothcanopycovercrib

Example

More examples

"When I was young, my father often talked to me about the Golden Pavilion."

Etymology

From Middle English pavilloun, from Anglo-Norman pavilloun, from Latin pāpiliōnem, form of pāpiliō (“butterfly, moth”) (due to resemblance of tent to a butterfly’s wings), of unknown origin. Doublet of papilio and papillon. Cognate to French pavillon (“pavilion”) and papillon (“butterfly”), and similar terms in other Romance languages.

Related phrases

pavilion roofbrilliant cutfallopian tubeouter earsemi detached

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.