finial

noun

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.”

   “[O]f that money vvhich aroſe of their amercements, vvere certain gilded ſhields made, vvhich vvere ſet up on the finial or lantern of Jupiters Temple.”

   “Truth uncompromisingly told will always have its ragged edges; hence the conclusion of such a narration is apt to be less finished than an architectural finial.”

   “The steep slate roofs were topped with bronze finials so tall and fanciful they looked like drops of liquid sliding down a thread.”

2. (broadly)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.”

   “Mark Twain called the cherimoya "deliciousness itself," though others have described this heart-shaped, fist-sized fruit with pale-green leathery skin as "reptilian," like a "fossil artichoke" or "the finial for a giant four-poster bed."”

   “He says there's a very particular etiquette to having your flag at half-mast: you're supposed to first run it all the way up to the finial at the top and then bring it halfway down.”

   “For several years, the finial was missing, and its replica replacement will save the wooden post from rotting.”

3. (also, attributive, figuratively)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.”

   “[…] Lancelot Carnaby stopped from his rash venture into the water, and drew himself back into an ivied bush, which served as the finial of the little garden-hedge.”