Pinnacle
name, noun, verb ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 The highest point.
- 2 (architecture) a slender upright spire at the top of a buttress or tower wordnet
- 3 A tall, sharp and craggy rock or mountain.
"Kings, who remain in many respects the representatives of a vanished world, solitary pinnacles that topple over the rising waste of waters under which the past lies buried."
- 4 a lofty peak wordnet
- 5 An all-time high; a point of greatest achievement or success. figuratively
"The pinnacle of the effort to fix restrictive meanings to a set of terminology can be found in two papers in American Speech by Feinsilver (1979, 1980)."
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- 6 the highest level or degree attainable; the highest stage of development wordnet
- 7 An upright member, generally ending in a small spire, used to finish a buttress, to constitute a part in a proportion, as where pinnacles flank a gable or spire.
"Some renowned metropolis / With glistering spires and pinnacles around."
- 1 To place on a pinnacle. transitive
"And down this vast gulf upon which we were pinnacled the great draught dashed and roared, driving clouds and misty wreaths of vapour before it, till we were nearly blinded, and utterly confused."
- 2 raise on or as if on a pinnacle wordnet
- 3 To build or furnish with a pinnacle or pinnacles. transitive
"The pediment of the Southern Transept is pinnacled, not inelegantly, with a flourished cross"
- 4 surmount with a pinnacle wordnet
- 1 A locality in the Weddin council area, central New South Wales, Australia.
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"He's unstoppable right now but the question is how long he can remain at the pinnacle of his career."
Etymology
From Middle English, borrowed from Old French pinacle, pinnacle, from Late Latin pinnaculum (“a peak, pinnacle”), from Latin pinna (“a pinnacle”); see pin. Doublet of panache.
Related phrases
More for "pinnacle"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.