English Language & Usage Asked by Kelly Clowers on August 26, 2020
Wiktionary gives a third sense for chandelier:
(obsolete, military) A portable frame used to support temporary wooden fences.
I can find quite a lot of uses like this from 1800s and earlier, but I can’t find any etymology besides the standard one which applies to lights/candles. Anyone know the connection? Thanks!
The OED confirms that 'chandelier', in its usual sense, is of modern etymology, precisely from the French.
But the only alternative meaning it gives is the one below, which is not quite the same thing to which you refer. But if anyone has access to Stocqueler (Military Encyclopaedia) it may tell us. Perhaps the 'sappers' traverse doubled for use in supporting fences when the sapping was done.
Mil. ‘A wooden frame, which was filled with fascines, to form a traverse in sapping’ (Stocqueler Mil. Encycl.), and cover the sappers.
Answered by WS2 on August 26, 2020
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