pillar: [13] Pillar comes ultimately from Latin pīla ‘pillar’ (source also of English compile, pilaster [16], and pile ‘heap’). In Vulgar Latin this was extended to *pīlāre, which passed into Anglo-Norman piler. This was the form in which English originally acquired it, and the -ar ending was not grafted on to it until the 14th century. => compile, pilaster, pile
pillar (n.)
c. 1200, from Old French piler "pillar, column, pier" (12c., Modern French pilier) and directly from Medieval Latin pilare, from Latin pila "pillar, stone barrier." Figurative sense of "prop or support of an institution or community" is first recorded early 14c. Phrase pillar to post is c. 1600, originally of tennis, exact meaning obscure.
双语例句
1. She strove to read the name on the stone pillar.
她费劲地读着石柱上的名字。
来自柯林斯例句
2. He was a pillar of the club for over thirty years.
30多年来他一直是这个俱乐部的顶梁柱.
来自《简明英汉词典》
3. There is a pillar box at the street corner.
胡同拐角处有个邮筒.
来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
4. Some people enjoy that kind of life, drifting from pillar to post.
