PIER • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Pier

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/pɪr/ Listen

noun

Pier n.

(Arch.)

(a)

Any detached mass of masonry, whether insulated or supporting one side of an arch or lintel, as of a bridge; the piece of wall between two openings.

(b)

Any additional or auxiliary mass of masonry used to stiffen a wall. See Buttress.

A projecting wharf or landing place.

Abutment pier, the pier of a bridge next the shore; a pier which by its strength and stability resists the thrust of an arch.

Pier glass, a mirror, of high and narrow shape, to be put up between windows.

Pier table, a table made to stand between windows.

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Etymology of 'Pier'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Pier" Quotes from Famous Books

... the great calm of the solemn cathedral? The benediction had been given, and the sparse congregation had now risen and was slowly departing, yet he rose not, but seemed to be hiding from view as he crouched behind the form in front of him, and edged his way slowly within the shadow of the heavy pier to ...

— Border Ghost Stories • Howard Pease

... they rambled about the town until the time drew near for the sailing of the boat. Then they went to the station for the luggage, and having engaged a porter to take it to the boat, they followed him down to the pier till they came to the place where the boat was lying. After seeing the trunk put on board they went on board themselves. A short time afterwards Mr. and Mrs. ...

— Rollo in Holland • Jacob Abbott

... apartment-house. As nearly as the rate of interest on the landlord's investment will allow, the housing of the poor approaches in comfort that of the rich. Their children are still more numerous, and the playgrounds supplied them in every open space and on every pier are visited constantly by the better-to-do children, who exchange with them lessons of form and fashion for the scarcely less valuable instruction in practical life which the poorer little ones are able to give. The rents in the tenement ...

— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells

... has frozen around the uprights the water will lift the ice up and the ice will sometimes pull the piles out of the bottom like a dentist pulls teeth. Nevertheless, piles are much better for a foundation for a camp or pier than any crib of rocks, and that is the reason I have shown the cribs in Figs. 75 and 77, made so as to rest upon the bottom supposedly below the level ...

— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard

... killed by lightning at any one time in America was in an amusement park in Chicago. Eleven people had huddled into a zinc-lined hut under a pier, for protection from the rain. The lightning struck the pier and jumped to the hut. If the hut had touched the wet sand, none of them would have been hurt, but the hut was on posts a couple of inches above the beach. The lightning could not escape to the ground ...

— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler

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