Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Perpendiculum

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rich, Anthony (1849). The illustrated companion to the Latin dictionary, and Greek lexicon. p. vi. OCLC 894670115. https://archive.org/details/illustratedcompa00rich. 

PERPENDI'CULUM (κάθετος). A plumb-line or line and plummet, employed by bricklayers, masons, &c., for the purpose of proving if their work be true to the perpendicular. (Vitruv. vii. 3. 5. Cic. ap. Non. s. v. p. 162. Plin. H. N. xxxv. 49.) The illustration (Perpendiculum/1.1) represents an original found with several others in a stone mason's shop at Pompeii; and numerous examples have been discovered in various excavations, all bearing a considerable resemblance to one another, and differing in no respect from those now in use, with the exception that they are made of bronze instead of lead, and exhibit taste in their design, which the ancients constantly studied even in the commonest articles of daily use.

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  Perpendiculum/1.1