pillar

noun

1. A large post, often used as supporting architecture.
2. Something resembling such a structure.

   “a pillar of smoke”

3. (figuratively)An essential part of something that provides support.

   “He's a pillar of the community.”

   “In the Shanghai Communiqué of 1972, we recognized the fact that both Beijing and Taipei viewed Taiwan as part of China but unequivocally expressed our support for a peaceful settlement of the unification issue. While we should not alter the fundamental pillars of our policy, we should consider certain steps that will raise Taiwan's international standing.”

   “Star Trek is one of the pillars of modern entertainment.”

4. A portable ornamental column, formerly carried before a cardinal, as emblematic of his support to the church.

   “two laye-men secular eache of theym holdynge a pillar In their hondes, steade of a mace”

5. The centre of the volta, ring, or manege ground, around which a horse turns.
6. The body from the hips over the core to the shoulders.
7. A vertical, often spire-shaped, natural rock formation.

verb

1. (transitive)To provide with pillars or added strength as if from pillars.

   “Insufficient penetration, or faulty distribution of the blast, may give rise to "pillaring" — that is, the formation of a pillar or column of cold material extending up through the middle of the hearth”

   “We discovered this new class of compounds in our search for a means of generating porosity by pillaring layered double hydroxides”

   “In the pillaring-grafting reaction the dimensionality increases by pillaring the organic or precursory polynuclear metal hydroxyl cations into an inorganic layer structured matrix.”

   “It was then that scientists started to create porosity in the interlayer space of layered clays. developing the first pillared clays with pores in the larger microporous region.”

name

1. A surname.