A pendant (from Old French) is a hanging ornament, generally attached to a necklace or an earring. In modern French this is an usual word meaning “during” (but also the gerund form of "hanging").

pendant (from Old French) is a hanging ornament, generally attached to a necklace or an earring. The use of pendants has several purposes; ornamentation is only one of them; pendants are also used for identification (i.e. religious symbols, sexual symbols, symbols of rock bands), protection (i.e. amulets, religious symbols), self-affirmation (i.e. initials, names), ostentation (i.e. jewels). Of course these purposes can be combined (i.e. a richly jeweled symbol).

Pendants have several purposes:

ornamentation
identification (i.e. religious symbols, sexual symbols, symbols of rock bands)
protection (i.e. amulets, religious symbols)
self-affirmation (i.e. initials, names)
ostentation (i.e. jewels).
These purposes can be combined (i.e. a richly jeweled symbol).

Apart from its use in jewelry, a pendant can also mean a portable control device such as is used in industry or robotics.

A cable pendant is one of a series of cables that is horizontally suspended across a flight deck of aircraft carriers for aircraft to land by catching with tailhook.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "pendants".