a. [ad. late L. columnār-is, f. columna COLUMN: see -AR. Cf. F. colomnaire.]

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  1.  Of the nature or form of a column (or columns), resembling a column, column-like.

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1728.  [see c].

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1774.  Pennant, Tour Scotl., 1772, 161. The rocks dip almost perpendicularly, and form long columnar stacks.

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1868.  Freeman, Norm. Conq. (1876), II. x. 515. Two ranges of arches, resting seemingly on tall columnar piers.

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1877.  Bryant, Little People of Snow, 165. Here the palm upreared Its white columnar trunk.

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  b.  fig.

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1832.  De Quincey, Cæsars, Wks. 1862, IX. 21. A perfect model of Roman grandeur, massy, columnar, imperturbable.

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1860.  Emerson, Cond. Life, Behav., Wks. (Bohn), II. 387. In the shallow company … here is the columnar Bernard.

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  c.  Said of rocks (such as basalt) and crystals that have a column-like structure; prismatic.

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a. 1728.  Woodward, Nat. Hist. Fossils, I. (1729), I. 157 (J.). White columnar Spar. Out of a Stone-Pit near Sherborn, Gloucestershire.

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1794.  R. J. Sulivan, View Nat., I. 435. The beryl which is a … crystal of the columnar form.

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1874.  Dawkins, Cave Hunt., ii. 24. Fingal’s Cave … and that of Staffa … hollowed out of columnar basalt.

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  d.  Biol. Said of tissue in which the cells are columnar, prismatic or cylindrical.

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1845.  Todd & Bowman, Phys. Anat., II. 3. The epithelium … being of the columnar variety, and clothed with cilia.

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1855.  Balfour, Man. Bot. (ed. 3), 4. Columnar cellular tissue, divided into Cylindrenchyma, cylindrical cells, and Prismenchyma, prismatical cells.

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1881.  Mivart, Cat, 26. The component cells of the epithelium may be elongated at right angles to the basement membrane, thus forming what is called ‘columnar epithelium.’

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  e.  Written or printed in columns (see COLUMN 4) or in vertical lines.

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1846.  Ellis, Elgin Marbles, II. 138. Written in the manner called Kionedon, or columnar.

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1881.  Westcott & Hort, Grk. N. T., II. 307. The columnar tables of attestation.

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1883.  J. Millington, Are we to read backwards? 50. An illustration of the Mongolian columnar style of printing.

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  f.  Math.

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1879.  Thomson & Tait, Nat. Phil., I. I. 165. Again, let the co-ordinates be of the kind which has been called ‘columnar’; that is to say, distance from an axis (r), angle from a plane of reference through this axis to a plane through the axis and the specified point (φ), and distance from a plane of reference perpendicular to the axis (z).

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  2.  Characterized by, or raised on, columns.

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1849.  Freeman, Archit., 43. The columnar architecture of mythic Greece.

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1863.  Sat. Rev., 305. There is such a thing as a columnar viaduct as well as a solid embankment.

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