BANISTER

Pronunciation (US): (GB):

I. (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A railing at the side of a staircase or balcony to prevent people from falling

Synonyms:

balusters; balustrade; banister; bannister; handrail

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("banister" is a kind of...):

barrier (a structure or object that impedes free movement)

Meronyms (parts of "banister"):

baluster (one of a number of closely spaced supports for a railing)

rail; railing (a barrier consisting of a horizontal bar and supports)

Holonyms ("banister" is a part of...):

balcony (a platform projecting from the wall of a building and surrounded by a balustrade or railing or parapet)

Credits

Context examples:

Adele was not easy to teach that day; she could not apply: she kept running to the door and looking over the banisters to see if she could get a glimpse of Mr. Rochester; then she coined pretexts to go downstairs, in order, as I shrewdly suspected, to visit the library, where I knew she was not wanted; then, when I got a little angry, and made her sit still, she continued to talk incessantly of her ami, Monsieur Edouard Fairfax de Rochester, as she dubbed him (I had not before heard his prenomens), and to conjecture what presents he had brought her: for it appears he had intimated the night before, that when his luggage came from Millcote, there would be found amongst it a little box in whose contents she had an interest.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

He was taking his time about his errand, then; but when he saw me on the top of the staircase, looking at him over the banisters, he swung into a trot, and came up panting as if he had run himself into a state of exhaustion.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

My clothes hung loose on me; for I was much wasted, but I covered deficiencies with a shawl, and once more, clean and respectable looking—no speck of the dirt, no trace of the disorder I so hated, and which seemed so to degrade me, left—I crept down a stone staircase with the aid of the banisters, to a narrow low passage, and found my way presently to the kitchen.