pendant

—pendanted, adj. —pendantlike, adj.

/pen"deuhnt/, n. Also pendent.

1. a hanging ornament, as an earring or the main piece suspended from a necklace.

2. an ornament suspended from a roof, vault, or ceiling.

3. a hanging electrical lighting fixture; chandelier.

4. that by which something is suspended, as the ringed stem of a watch.

5. a match, parallel, companion, or counterpart.

6. Also, pennant. Naut. a length of rope attached to a masthead, the end of a yardarm, etc., and having a block or thimble secured to its free end.

adj.

7. pendent.

[1300-50; ME pendaunt < AF; MF pendant, n. use of prp. of pendre to hang < VL *pendere for L pendere. See PEND, -ANT]

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I

Ornament suspended from a bracelet, earring, or necklace and derived from the primitive practice of wearing amulets or talismans around the neck.

The practice dates from the Stone Age, when pendants consisted of objects such as teeth, stones, and shells. Commemorative and decorative pendants were common in ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome. In the Middle Ages reliquaries, or devotional pendants, and crosses were created with jewels. By the beginning of the 16th century, Renaissance artists were creating pendants for decorative rather than religious use. The late 19th-century Art Nouveau movement often featured women's figures, butterflies, or flowers on pendants.

Art Nouveau pendant by L. Gautrait, c. 1900; in the Schmuckmuseum, Pforzheim, Ger.

By courtesy of the Schmuckmuseum, Pforzheim, Ger.

II

or pendent

In architecture, a sculpted ornament suspended from a vault or ceiling, especially an elongated boss (carved keystone) at the junction of the intersecting ribs of the fan vaulting associated with the English Perpendicular style.

In stone ceilings, the use of pendant vaulting was a solution to the difficulty of adapting fan vaulting to very wide church naves. Strong transverse arches were made to span the area, and these in turn supported the elongated keystones. Intermediate rib and panel vaults sprang from these pendants.

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▪ architecture

also spelled  Pendent,  

      in architecture, sculpted ornament or elongated boss terminating the fan, or pendant, vaulting, associated with late English Gothic architecture of the Perpendicular period (15th century). Such devices are also to be found hanging from the framing of open timber roofs of this as well as the earlier Decorated period.

      In stone ceilings the use of pendant vaulting was a solution to the difficulty of adapting fan vaulting to church naves built much wider than previously. Strong transverse arches were made to span the area, and these in turn supported the elongated voussoirs, ending in pendants. Intermediate rib and panel vaults spring from the pendants. Examples include Oxford's cathedral (1480–1500) and divinity schools (1480–83). In Henry VII's chapel (1503–19), Westminster, London, the pendant vaulting is supported by hidden arches above the ceiling. This type of fan vaulting was also a feature of the Flamboyant period (14th to early 16th century) in France.

▪ jewelry

      in jewelry, ornament suspended from a bracelet, earring, or, especially, a necklace. Pendants are derived from the primitive practice of wearing amulets (amulet) or talismans around the neck. The practice dates from the Stone Age, when pendants consisted of such objects as teeth, stones, and shells.

      The pharaohs of ancient Egypt wore pendants that were sometimes of huge dimensions, usually bearing commemorative or auspicious scenes in which the sovereign is being deified. Other pendants were in the shape of flies, winged scarabs, vultures, the eye of the god Horus, falcons, and sacred serpents. An exquisite example of an early gold pendant is that of two hornets clasped together, found in Mycenae and dating from the 17th century BC (Archaeological Museum, Iráklion, Crete). Etruscan pendants were decorated with spindles and cylinders, figured, or in the shape of human heads. Greek and Hellenistic pendants usually formed the entire necklace. Pendants in the shape of a bulla (q.v.) are frequent in Roman necklaces, but there are also examples of cameos, intaglios, and gold coins mounted as pendants.

      During the Middle Ages, characteristic jewels were the reliquary, or devotional, pendant and the cross, chased or enamelled with religious subjects and often set in an architectural frame. One of the most famous early pendant reliquaries, which belonged to Charlemagne (cathedral treasury, Reims, Fr.), contained relics of the True Cross and the crown of thorns (Thorns, Crown of) under a sapphire set with gold. In the 14th century it was customary for noblemen to wear necklaces with pendants bearing heraldic subjects; pendants worn by women generally depicted sentimental subjects.

      Toward the beginning of the 16th century, pendants became decorative rather than religious objects. The Renaissance artists created numerous beautiful crosses and figured pendants modelled in high relief and depicting numerous subjects, such as mermaids, tritons, animals and ships, and mythological and religious scenes. Often, the irregular shapes of baroque pearls (q.v.) were exploited and adapted for the bodies of human beings or animals, whose faces and limbs were modelled in gold and enamelled.

      In the Baroque (Baroque period) period there was a return in pendants to engraved figures and intaglio and cameo cutting, framed in geometric decorative designs containing gems and, later, in ribbons and floral designs done mainly in diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and pearls. Such pendants continued to be popular until the end of the 18th century.

      The Empire style attached no great importance to pendants, and most of the rare examples consist of cameo medallions. In the 19th century the Art Nouveau (q.v.) school created pendants with a lovely aesthetic line in which the most common motifs were women's figures and profiles, butterflies, peacocks, insects, and flowers.

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