Pendant


A pendant (from Old French) word "pendre" and the Latin word "pendere" which means "to hang down" is a loose-hanging piece of jewellery, generally attached by a small loop to a necklace, when the ensemble may be known as a "pendant necklace". A pendant earring is an earring with a piece hanging down. In modern French "pendant" is the gerund form of “hanging” (also meaning “during”).

One of the earliest types of bodily adornment is the pendant. Primeval man liked to put a tiny hole in a beautiful rock and slip a string usually made of grass or vine so it could be hung around the neck. Shells and other indigenous materials could also be used. In Ancient Egypt, Pharaohs normally wore scarab beetle pendants to symbolize their wealth and power. Royalty and nobility in Egypt also wear a certain type of pendant called a cartouche.


Pendants can have several functions, which may be combined:

  • Ornamentation
  • Identification (i.e., religious symbols, sexual symbols, symbols of rock bands)
  • Protection (i.e., amulets, religious symbols)
  • Self-affirmation (i.e., initials, names)
  • Ostentation (i.e., jewels).
  • Award (i.e., Scouting Ireland Chief Scout's Award, Order of CúChulainn)

The many specialized types of pendants include lockets which open, often to reveal an image, and pendilia, which hang from larger objects of metalwork.

Read more about Pendant:  Other Meanings

Famous quotes containing the word pendant:

    “Sometimes we see a cloud that’s dragonish,
    A vapor sometimes like a bear or lion,
    A towered citadel, a pendant rock,
    A forked mountain, or blue promontory
    With trees upon ‘t that nod unto the world
    And mock our eyes with air. Thou hast seen these signs;
    They are black vesper’s pageants.”
    —William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

    “The young men float on their backs, their white bellies bulge to
    the sun, they do not ask who seizes fast to them,
    They do not know who puffs and declines with pendant and bending arch,
    They do not think whom they souse with spray.”
    —Walt Whitman (1819–1892)

    “The pleasure of leaving home, care-free, with no concern but to enjoy, has also as a pendant the pleasure of coming back to the old hearthstone, the home to which, however traveled, the heart still fondly turns, ignoring the burden of its anxieties and cares.”
    —Herman Melville (1819–1891)