Greeks called Egypt's stone pillars 'little roasting spits' — forever naming monuments after skewers.
A stone pillar, typically tapering and with a pyramidal top, set up as a monument or landmark.
From Latin 'obeliscus,' from Greek 'obeliskos' (small pointed pillar, small spit), diminutive of 'obelos' (a pointed pillar, a roasting spit, a skewer). The Greeks applied the diminutive 'obeliskos' to Egyptian monumental shafts reaching 30 metres — a tongue-in-cheek scale joke, since the word technically means 'little spit.' The same 'obelos' gave English the typographic 'obelus' (the dagger symbol †), originally placed by Alexandrian scholars in the margins of manuscripts
The Greeks called Egypt's enormous stone pillars 'obeliskoi' — literally 'little skewers' — with the same irreverent humor that might lead a tourist to call the Eiffel Tower 'that big nail.' The diminutive suffix stuck, and now a 200-ton granite monument is permanently named after a kitchen utensil.