Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A series of columns surrounding a building or enclosing a court.
- noun A court enclosed by columns.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun In architecture, a range or ranges of columns surrounding any part, as the cella of a Greek temple, or any place, as a court or cloister, or the atrium of a classical house. See cuts under
Greek and opisthodomos.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Arch.) A range of columns with their entablature, etc.; specifically, a complete system of columns, whether on all sides of a court, or surrounding a building, such as the cella of a temple. Used in the former sense, it gives name to the larger and inner court of a Roman dwelling, the
peristyle . Seecolonnade .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun
colonnade surrounding acourtyard ,temple , etc. - noun A
courtyard ; the space surrounded by a colonnade. - noun A
porch surrounded bycolumns .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a colonnade surrounding a building or enclosing a court
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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The body of it is adorned with twenty columns engaged in the wall, and the peristyle, which is open, with ten detached pillars that support the entablature.
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In the peristyle is a semicircular fountain, on the margin of which were disposed several animals in bronze, representing a hunting scene.
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In the peristyle was a large earthenware jar, which had been broken across the middle and the pieces then sewed carefully and laboriously together with wire.
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On the north side of the peristyle is a double portico containing the _exedrae_, or seats of the sophists, where each most cunning rhetorician delivered his opinions _ex cathedrâ_, and lay in wait for any passer whom he could insnare into an argument.
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That close to the gate, called the House of the Triclinium, derives its name from a large triclinium in the centre of the peristyle, which is spacious and handsome, and bounded by the city walls.
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If surrounding a building or court, it is called a peristyle; when projecting beyond the line of the building a portico.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 4: Clandestinity-Diocesan Chancery 1840-1916 1913
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In the corridor surrounding the peristyle were the names and portraits of all the pharaohs from Menes the first ruler of Egypt to Ramses XII In the hypostyle, or hall for nobles, the geography and statistics of Egypt were presented pictorially, also the subject nations.
The Pharaoh and the Priest An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt Boles��aw Prus 1879
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The columns and wall at the extreme end of the peristyle were a mass of ruins, through the gigantic rents of which loomed a grassy hillock, its sides partially covered with clumps of furze.
Harold : the Last of the Saxon Kings — Complete Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton 1838
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This was most evident in the neglected peristyle or temple that was once revered as sacred space where community gathered.
Gina Athena Ulysse: Haiti's Vodou: A World Of Wonder And Surrender Gina Athena Ulysse 2012
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This was most evident in the neglected peristyle or temple that was once revered as sacred space where community gathered.
Gina Athena Ulysse: Haiti's Vodou: A World Of Wonder And Surrender Gina Athena Ulysse 2012
tsuomela commented on the word peristyle
It happens on a day you can remember: up a wide, hummocky gully in Idaho, with rockhounds staring through hand lenses beneath a sky streaming with peristyles of sunlight, then ragged with dark clouds spitting real snow, the aspen leaves flickering lightdark, lightdark, lightdark, hyper-real. by Christopher Cokinos at http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/268/
May 13, 2007