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''candelabrum'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260215184259-00-⌔

candelabrum - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

🖼️ ➺ 🖼️ ➺

Noun

candelabrum (plural candelabra or (very rare) candelabrums)

• A candle holder with branches to hold more than one candle.
  • ✤ The chair she sat in, like a burnished throne,/Glowed on the marble, where the glass […] Doubled the flames of sevenbranched candelabra/Reflecting light upon the table as/The glitter of her jewels rose to meet it, […]¹
  • ✤ Cyby followed us holding up his candelabrum —I suppose more for his benefit than mine, but it permitted me to see well enough to keep from colliding with the dark oak shelves we passed.²

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from Latin candēlābrum (“candlestick”), from candēla.³ Doublet of chandelier. Displaced native Old English candeltrēow (literally “candle tree”).

Pronunciation

• IPA: (Received Pronunciation)/kændɪˈlɑːbɹəm/⁴
• IPA: /kændɪˈleɪbɹəm/⁴
• (General American) IPA: /ˌkæn.dl̩ˈɑ.bɹəm/, /ˌkæn.dl̩ˈæ.bɹəm/
• Audio (US): 🔊
• Hyphenation: can‧de‧la‧brum

Printed 2026-06-28.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

1. 1922 October, T[homas] S[tearns] Eliot, “Part II. A Game of Chess.”, in The Waste Land, 1st book edition, New York, N.Y.: Boni and Liveright, published December 1922, →OCLC, page 17: ↩

2. 1980, Gene Wolfe, chapter 6, in The Shadow of the Torturer (The Book of the New Sun; 1), New York: Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, page 58: ↩

3. “candelabrum”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000. ↩

4. “candelabrum”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000. ↩ ↩²

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