finial

English

finial at peak of gable (illustration by Viollet-le-Duc, 1856)

finial of the dome of the Taj Mahal

finial (2) of a newel post

Etymology

Late Middle English finial < Old French fin or Latin fīnis (“end”) +‎ -ial

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈfɪn.i.əl/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

Noun

finial (plural finials)

1. (architecture) The knot or bunch of foliage, or foliated ornament, that forms the upper extremity of a pinnacle in Gothic architecture.

   Coordinate term: fleuron

   • 1888–1891, Herman Melville, “[Billy Budd, Foretopman.] Chapter 24.”, in Billy Budd and Other Stories, London: John Lehmann, published 1951, OCLC 639975898:

     Truth uncompromisingly told will always have its ragged edges; hence the conclusion of such a narration is apt to be less finished than an architectural finial.

   • 2004, Alan Hollinghurst, chapter 3, in The Line of Beauty, New York: Bloomsbury, OCLC 1036692193:

     The steep slate roofs were topped with bronze finials so tall and fanciful they looked like drops of liquid sliding down a thread.

2. (by extension) Any decorative fitting at the peak of a gable, or on the top of a flagpole, fencepost, newel post of a staircase etc.
   • 1988, Alan Hollinghurst, The Swimming-Pool Library, paperback edition edition, Penguin Books, 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^[1], ISSN 0362-4331:

     Mark Twain called the cherimoya “deliciousness itself,” though others have described this heart-shaped, fist-sized fruit with pale-green leathery skin as […] “the finial for a giant four-poster bed.”

   • 2005, David Foster Wallace, Consider the Lobster and Other Essays, New York: Little, Brown and Company, →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, page 82:

     For several years, the finial was missing, and its replica replacement will save the wooden post from rotting.

Translations

foliated ornament

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 葉尖飾

• Finnish: päätykoriste
• French: fleuron (fr) m
• German: Giebelblume f, Firstblume f, Kreuzblume (de) f
• Japanese: 頂華 (ちょうげ, chōge)
• Vietnamese: một năm
• Zazaki: alem (diq) m

decorative fitting

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 尖頂飾

• Esperanto: please add this translation if you can
• Finnish: päätykoriste (in a gable); nuppi (fi) (in a post, pole etc.)

• French: épi de faîtage (fr) m, poinçon (fr) m
• German: Dachschmuck m (roof), Giebelschmuck m (gable)
• Japanese: 先端装飾 (せんたんそうしょく, sentan sōshoku)
• Polish: kwiaton (pl)

Further reading

• finial on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• “finial”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Anagrams

• failin'