Definition of "pinnacle"

Kings, who remain in many respects the representatives of a vanished world, solitary pinnacles that topple over the rising waste of waters under which the past lies buried.

1900, James George Frazer, The Golden Bough, volume 2, page 55

The pinnacle of the effort to fix restrictive meanings to a set of terminology can be found in two papers in American Speech by Feinsilver (1979, 1980).

2018, James Lambert, “A multitude of ‘lishes’: The nomenclature of hybridity”, in English World-Wide‎, page 7

Some renowned metropolis / With glistering spires and pinnacles around.

1667, John Milton, “Book III”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], […]; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873,

And down this vast gulf upon which we were pinnacled the great draught dashed and roared, driving clouds and misty wreaths of vapour before it, till we were nearly blinded, and utterly confused.

1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887

The pediment of the Southern Transept is pinnacled, not inelegantly, with a flourished cross

1782, Thomas Warton, The History and Antiquities of Kiddington