1. A basket or vessel used in ancient Greece and Rome, often depicted in art as a woven or ornamental container.
Usage: archaic; classical antiquity
2. In architecture and decoration, a bell-shaped ornament or capital resembling a basket, used especially in Corinthian columns.
Usage: technical; architecture

Examples

• The museum displayed a calathus from the Hellenistic period.
• Ancient Greek maidens carried flowers in a calathus.
• The Corinthian column's calathus was decorated with acanthus leaves.
• Scholars studied the calathus depicted on red-figure pottery.
• The ornamental calathus crowns the capital of the temple's columns.