Sport & ContestGreek → English
Podium
/ˈpoʊdiəm/noun
A raised platform for a speaker, a conductor or a medal winner.
The Greek roots
πόδιον
pódion
little foot, base
πούς
poús
foot
Literally: “little foot”
The story of the word
In Greek a πόδιον is a base or footing. Roman architecture used podium for the raised wall around an arena, where the good seats were, and English borrowed it first for the plinth of a building rather than anything to stand on. American usage now puts a speaker on a podium where British usage puts him behind a lectern, a difference editors still argue about. The three-step victory stand of the 1932 Olympics did the rest.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 1743
Same family
podiatrytripodantipodesoctopus
In a sentence
She finished fourth and missed the podium by a tenth of a second.
He gripped both sides of the podium and said nothing for five seconds.