Pend

A pend in Edinburgh

Pend is a Scottish architectural term referring to a passageway that passes through a building, often from a street through to a courtyard or 'back court', and typically designed for vehicular rather than exclusively pedestrian access.[1]

A pend is distinct from a vennel or a close, as it has rooms directly above it, whereas vennels and closes tend not to be covered over and are typically passageways between separate buildings. However a 'close' also means a common entry to multi-dwelling tenement properties in Scotland.

The OED suggests that the etymology of the word is probably related to the archaic verb pend - "arch, arch over, vault", this in turn being derived from the French pendre, Latin pendēre "to hang"[2]

References

  1. ↑ Town and Regional Planning Programme, University of Dundee. "Conservation Glossary, entry for "pend"". Retrieved 2008-05-12.
  2. ↑ OED, online edition, draft revision December 2007, entries for pend, n2 and pend, v2
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