column

Noun

1. A solid upright structure designed usually to support a larger structure above it, such as a roof or horizontal beam, but sometimes for decoration.
2. A vertical line of entries in a table, usually read from top to bottom.
3. A body of troops or army vehicles, usually strung out along a road.
4. A body of text meant to be read line by line, especially in printed material that has multiple adjacent such on a single page.
   • It was too hard to read the text across the whole page, so I split it into two columns.
5. A unit of width, especially of advertisements, in a periodical, equivalent to the width of a usual column of text.
   • Each column inch costs $300 a week; this ad is four columns by three inches, so will run $3600 a week.
6. A recurring feature in a periodical, especially an opinion piece, especially by a single author or small rotating group of authors, or on a single theme.
   • His initial foray into print media was as the author of a weekly column in his elementary-school newspaper.
   • I have always argued that despite my opposition to rail privatisation, I should be grateful that John Major won the 1992 election on a platform to sell off the railways, as otherwise my column would have disappeared...
7. Something having similar vertical form or structure to the things mentioned above, such as a spinal column.
   • The desert storm was riding in its strength; the travellers lay beneath the mastery of the fell simoom. Whirling wreaths and columns of burning wind, rushed around and over them. - 1892, James Yoxall, chapter 5, in The...
8. The gynostemium
9. An instrument used to separate the different components of a liquid or to purify chemical compounds.