Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun See baldachin.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun uncountable, archaic A kind of embroidered material with gold thread-work.
  • noun A fine canopy of silk, erected over shrines, thrones, etc.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French baldaquin, from Italian baldacchino, from Baldacco, a variant of Baghdad, where the material originally came from.

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Examples

  • In the five-year plan, Stalin the romanticist, or: the blind baldaquin takes revenge for a stage upon which plays a vermiculating drama of excess.

    Excerpt from De Imitatio Calembouri 2010

  • And hardly had we taken note of this when there came forth from the baldaquin a young lady and I looked, O Commander of the Faithful, upon a face and form more perfect than the moon when fullest, with a favour brighter than the dawn gleaming with saffron-hued light, even as the poet sang when he said —

    The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night 2006

  • It was hung and carpeted with silken stuffs, and was illuminated with branches sconces and tapers ranged in double row, an avenue abutting on the upper or noble end of the saloon, where stood a couch of juniper wood encrusted with pearls and gems and surmounted by a baldaquin with mosquito curtains of satin looped up with margaritas.

    The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night 2006

  • It is put on by the eunuchs, who enter the baldaquin by its Northern gate at night time, and there is a superstitious story amongst the people that they guard their eyes with veils against the supernatural splendours which pour from the tomb.

    Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah and Meccah 2003

  • Moreover I never saw it quite near enough to judge fairly, and I did not think fit to pay an exorbitant sum for the privilege of entering the inner passage of the baldaquin. 47

    Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah and Meccah 2003

  • Marcus Aurelius's celebrated steed which was originally placed here under a canopy or baldaquin held aloft by colonnettes.

    Royal Palaces and Parks of France Blanche McManus

  • An enormous bed à baldaquin was trimmed with the same toile and each post had a great bunch of white feathers on top.

    Chateau and Country Life in France Mary Alsop King Waddington

  • Reine and Renée ... the road to Auteuil under the moon-shot baldaquin of

    Europe After 8:15 George Jean Nathan 1920

  • The tombs were hidden by a fair coronal of waving grasses, and the redthorns above made a baldaquin more beautiful than the work of man's hand.

    A German Pompadour Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Grävenitz, Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg 1905

  • On such an occasion the emperor, the empress and the royal guests having taken up their places on the dais, under the baldaquin, and immediately in front of the throne, the less exalted guests ranging themselves to the right and left of the great white hall, according to rank and precedence, the court marshal receives orders from his majesty for the dance to begin.

    The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe Fontenoy, Mme La Marquise De 1900

Comments

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  • He examined his room. It was not very high, just high enough to take the bed which stood under an enormous baldaquin-like canopy from which fell heavy curtains at foot and head; a bed certainly worthy of an archbishop.

    - Conrad, The Inn of the Two Witches

    March 5, 2009

  • There’s uncles and aunts and grandmothers

    And spawn of your sisters and brothers,

    A small baldaquin

    For all balder kin

    And tables in sunlight for others.

    November 7, 2018