finial

English
WOTD – 2 October 2023

Etymology
An 1856 illustration by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc of a finial (sense 1) at the peak of a gable.
The finial (sense 1) of the dome of the Taj Mahal in Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India.
A finial (sense 2) on the newel post of a staircase.

From Late Middle English finial (“(adjective) final; (noun) ornament at the upper extremity of a pinnacle, spire, etc.”) [and other forms],[1] a variant of final (“pertaining to the close or end of something, last, final”),[2][3] from Old French final (“last, final; definitive”) (modern French final), from Latin fīnālis (“of or pertaining to the end of something, final; of or pertaining to boundaries”), from fīnis (“a border; an end”) (possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeyd- (“to split”) or *dʰeygʷ- (“to set up; to stick”)) + -ālis (suffix meaning ‘of or pertaining’ to forming adjectives).

Pronunciation
  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈfɪn.i.əl/, /ˈfaɪ-/
  • Audio (Southern England)(file)
  • (General American) IPA(key): /ˈfɪn.i.əl/
  • Hyphenation: fin‧i‧al

Noun

finial (plural finials)

  1. (architecture) Especially in Gothic architecture: an ornament, often in the form of a bunch or knot of foliage, on the peak of the gable of a roof, a pediment, a pinnacle, etc.
    Coordinate term: fleuron
  2. (by extension) Any decorative fitting on the corner, end, or top of an object such as a canopy, a fencepost, a flagpole, a curtain rod, or the newel post of a staircase.
    • 1947 January–February, “Notes and News: An Unusual Signal at Mottisfont, S.R.”, in The Railway Magazine, London: Tothill Press, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 55:
      The finial is also of timber (probably oak) and is of the rather elaborate type, originally favoured by the London & South Western Railway for its timber masts.
    • 1988, Alan Hollinghurst, chapter 7, in The Swimming-Pool Library, London: Vintage, published 1998, →ISBN, page 142:
      It was a narrow, gravelled island we had to lie on, guarded by glazed brick chimneys and, running along the sides, a prickly little gothic fence of iron finials and terracotta quatrefoils.
    • 1994 January 12, David Karp, “Once considered exotic, some fruits become family”, in The New York Times‎, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2021-10-30:
      Mark Twain called the cherimoya "deliciousness itself," though others have described this heart-shaped, fist-sized fruit with pale-green leathery skin as "reptilian," like a "fossil artichoke" or "the finial for a giant four-poster bed."
    • 2005, David Foster Wallace, “The View from Mrs. Thompson’s”, in Consider the Lobster and Other Essays, New York, N.Y.: Little, Brown and Company, published 2006, →ISBN, page 129:
      He says there's a very particular etiquette to having your flag at half-mast: you're supposed to first run it all the way up to the finial at the top and then bring it halfway down.
    • 2021 September 22, “A Signal Survivor from the 1800s”, in Rail, number 940, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire: Bauer Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 82:
      For several years, the finial was missing, and its replica replacement will save the wooden post from rotting.
  3. (figurative, also attributive) The completion or end of something.

Hyponyms

Derived terms

Translations
completion or end of something — see completion,‎ end

References
  1. “finiāl, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
  2. “fīnāl, -all, -el, adj.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
  3. “finial, adj. and n.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, July 2023; compare “finial, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Further reading

Anagrams
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