The Etymology of Pylon
Pylon entered English in 1823 as an archaeological term for the great trapezoidal gateways flanking the entrances of Egyptian temples — those at Karnak, Luxor, and Edfu rise more than thirty metres and frame the doorway with sloping mass and carved relief. The word descends from Greek pylōn, gateway, an augmentative of pylē, gate, a root that also gives pylorus (the lower gate of the stomach) and Thermopylae (the hot gates). When electrical engineers in the 1920s needed a name for the lattice steel towers carrying high-voltage lines across the countryside, the Egyptian word — already familiar to educated readers — was extended to cover them, and the new sense quickly overtook the old in everyday speech. Today most English speakers think first of cables and aviation marker towers; only travellers and Egyptologists still associate pylon with sandstone gateways and pharaonic façades.