Other forms: rostra, rostrums
A rostrum is a raised platform to speak or conduct from. Step up to the rostrum, the conductor's rostrum, address them from the rostrum.
The name is remarkable: the Latin means a beak, and the speaking platform in Rome was decorated with the beaks of captured warships. The plural is rostra, which was the name of that platform itself.
1nounrostrumA raised platform to speak or conduct from.
“The conductor stepped onto the rostrum, raised his baton, and the orchestra began.”
rostrum is a platform.
Latin rostrum means a beak, and named the Roman speakers' platform decorated with ships' beaks.
Proto-Indo-European
*Hreh₃d-
Latin
rōstrum — beak, snout
English, today
rostrum
Built from
Latin rōstrum (“beak, snout”), from rōdō (“gnaw”) + -trum, from Proto-Indo-European Hreh₃d- + -trom. The pulpit sense is a back-formation from the name of the Roman Rōstra, the platforms in the Forum where politicians made speeches. The Rōstra were decorated with (and named for) the beaks (prows) of ships from naval victories.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA