finial

noun

Etymology: From Late Middle English finial (“(adjective) final; (noun) ornament at the upper extremity of a pinnacle, spire, etc.”) [and other forms], a variant of final (“pertaining to the close or end of something, last, final”), from Old French final (“last, final; definitive”) (modern French final), from Latin fīnālis (“of or pertaining to the end of something, final; of or pertaining to boundaries”), from fīnis (“a border; an end”) (possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeyd- (“to split”) or *dʰeygʷ- (“to set up; to stick”)) + -ālis (suffix meaning ‘of or pertaining’ to forming adjectives).

1. Especially in Gothic architecture: an ornament, often in the form of a bunch or knot of foliage, on the peak of the gable of a roof, a pediment, a pinnacle, etc.

   “His [Butades'] invention it vvas to ſet up Gargils or Antiques at the top of a Gavill end, as a finiall to the creſt tiles, vvhich in the beginning he called Protypa.”

   “From this fair Palace then he takes his Front, / From that his Finials; […] / And ſo, ſelecting euery vvhere the beſt, / Doth thirty Models in one Houſe digeſt.”

2. Any decorative fitting on the corner, end, or top of an object such as a canopy, a fencepost, a flagpole, a curtain rod, or the newel post of a staircase.

   “The finial is also of timber (probably oak) and is of the rather elaborate type, originally favoured by the London & South Western Railway for its timber masts.”

   “It was a narrow, gravelled island we had to lie on, guarded by glazed brick chimneys and, running along the sides, a prickly little gothic fence of iron finials and terracotta quatrefoils.”

3. The completion or end of something.

   “But, as the Phœnix on my Front doth gliſter, / Thou ſhalt the Finials of my Frame illuſtre.”

   “[T]hey have invented idols, a manifest advance toward that polytheism and pantheism which lead through a triad and duad of deities to monotheism, the finial of the spiritual edifice.”