Plinthus
πλίνθος
Plinthus (πλίνθος), a brick or tile [LATER], or a squared stone for building; so of the marble blocks for the walls of the Erechtheum (C. I. G. 160, 50.10). The word is especially used by Vitruvius (also plinthis) and in modern architectural works, to denote the square block that sometimes forms the lower member of the base in the Ionic and Corinthian orders. In the best known Attic instances of the Ionic order no plinth exists. See SPIRA, COLUMNA.
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.