Pinnacle Meaning
/ˈpɪnəkəl/Definition, CEFR level B2, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
Listen pronunciation
Definition
nounThe highest point.
nounA tall, sharp and craggy rock or mountain.
Sentence Examples
It's the pinnacle of luxury.
Is man really the pinnacle of Creation, or just a freak of nature?
CEFR Practice Quiz
Climbing to the ____ of the mountain required advanced skills and endurance.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
Winning the Nobel Prize represented the ____ of her scientific career and decades of research.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English, borrowed from Old French pinacle, pinnacle, from Late Latin pinnāculum (“a peak, pinnacle”), from Latin pinna (“a pinnacle”); see pin. Doublet of panache.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"Kings, who remain in many respects the representatives of a vanished world, solitary pinnacles that topple over the rising waste of waters under which the past lies buried."
— 1900, James George Frazer, The Golden Bough, volume 2, page 55:
"The pinnacle of the effort to fix restrictive meanings to a set of terminology can be found in two papers in American Speech by Feinsilver (1979, 1980)."
— 2018, James Lambert, “A multitude of ‘lishes’: The nomenclature of hybridity”, in English World-Wide, page 7:
"Some renowned metropolis / With glistering spires and pinnacles around."
— 1667, John Milton, “Book III”, 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:
"In the city’s midst the gleaming marble of a thousand steps climbed to the citadel where arose four pinnacles beckoning to heaven, and midmost between the pinnacles there stood the dome, vast, as the gods had dreamed it."
— 1906, Lord Dunsany [i.e., Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany], Time and the Gods, London: William Heineman, →OCLC, page 1:
"And down this vast gulf upon which we were pinnacled the great draught dashed and roared, driving clouds and misty wreaths of vapour before it, till we were nearly blinded, and utterly confused."
— 1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:
Explore More B2 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
Climbing to the ____ of the mountain required advanced skills and endurance.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
Winning the Nobel Prize represented the ____ of her scientific career and decades of research.