the.com/pendant
jewelry's overachiever, hanging around your neck doing emotional and decorative heavy lifting simultaneously.
means A piece of jewelry or ornament that hangs down, typically suspended from a chain or cord around the neck.
from From the French pendant, literally "hanging," the present participle of pendre, "to hang" — itself from Latin pendere, "to hang or be suspended." That same Latin root drips through a whole family of dangling words: pending (still hanging in the balance), suspend, and even pendulum. So a pendant is, etymologically, just a thing caught mid-hang — frozen in the act of dropping.
- latin root
- from pendere, meaning to hang or dangle
- locket cousin
- hollow pendants once hid poison, portraits, or hair
- oldest known
- shell pendants date back 130,000 years
- reliquary roots
- medieval ones held saints' bone fragments inside
hope diamond — 45.52-carat blue diamond pendant housed in the smithsonian since 1958
cross of lorraine — double-barred cross pendant worn by french nobility and crusaders since medieval times
locket — hinged pendant containing photo or keepsake, popularized during victorian era