pendent
adjUK /ˈpɛndənt/
Etymology From Middle English pendaunt, Anglo-Norman pendaunt, pendant, respelled to reflect Latin pendēns, pendentis, present participle of pendere (“to hang, to be suspended”). Compare pendant, which retained the spelling.
Dangling, drooping, hanging down or suspended.
- Now had they brought the work by wondrous Art / Pontifical, a ridge of pendent Rock / Over the vext Abyſs, […]1667, John Milton, “Book IX”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC, lines 312–314:
- Nectar ran / In courteous fountains to all cups outreach'd; / And plunder'd vines, teeming exhaustless, pleach'd / New growth about each shell and pendent lyre; […]1818, John Keats, “Book III”, in Endymion: A Poetic Romance, London: […] T[homas] Miller, […] for Taylor and Hessey, […], →OCLC, page 149, lines 932–935:
2 more examples
- The doctor's head [...] was framed in the golden semi-circle of a wig with long pendent curls that touched his shoulders […]1936, Djuna Barnes, Nightwood, Faber & Faber, published 2007, page 71:
- An interesting development has been the analysis of the image of a pendent drop by a video digitizer.1986, Bryant W Rossiter, Roger C Baetzold, Investigations of Surfaces and Interfaces:
Pending (in various senses).
Architecture Of a structure Either hanging in some sense, or constructed of multiple elements such as the voussoirs of an arch or the pendentives of a dome, none of which can stand on its own, but which in combination are stable.
Government, Heraldry, Hobbies, Lifestyle, Monarchy, Nobility, Politics Hanging or pointed downward; (of a crescent) with its horns pointing downward.
- Jandrell, Sa. three buckles, the tongues pendent ar. two and a one.1780, Joseph Edmondson, A Complete Body of Heraldry:
- Az. a chev. or, betw. three acorns, pendent, Kymberlee.1828, William Berry, Encyclopaedia Heraldica, Or Complete Dictionary of Heraldry: Dictionary of Heraldry, page 89:
2 more examples
- JAUDRILL. Ermines, three round buckles ar. tongues pendent.1844, John Burke, Bernard Burke, Encyclopædia of Heraldry, page 49:
- page 207: de CAMPO REAL: chequy Sable and Argent on a chief Gules a crescent pendent of the field.1981, Bruno Bernhard Heim, Armorial Bruno Bernard Heim, Colin Smythe:
Grammar, Human sciences, Linguistics, Sciences Of a sentence Incomplete in some sense, such as lacking a finite verb.
Obsolete Projecting over something; overhanging.
- Derived terms
- pendent jurisdiction, pendently, semipendent
- Related terms
- pendentive