pillar

pillar a tall vertical structure of stone, wood, or metal used as a support for a building or as an ornament or monument; a pillar as that to which Jesus was bound during the Flagellation is thus one of the symbols of the Passion.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, a pillar denoted a small column carried as a symbol of dignity or office; this was used by Cardinal Wolsey (c.1475–1530) and Cardinal Pole (1500–1558), but not recorded elsewhere. Representations of Wolsey's pillars appear in the decorations of Christ Church, Oxford. Those of Pole are represented in the illumination on the first page of his Register of Wills at Somerset House; they appear as Corinthian columns with capital and base, about the size of Roman fasces.
from pillar to post from one place to another in an unceremonious or fruitless manner. The phrase (in its earlier form from post to pillar) originally referred to the rapid movement of a ball around the court in real tennis. The rhyming constructions with tost or tossed which are found in a number of early uses make reference to this.
pillar of salt into which the wife of Lot (see Lot1) was turned for her disobedience in turning back to look at Sodom in their flight from its destruction.
pillar of society a person regarded as a particularly responsible citizen, a mainstay of the social fabric. Pillar in the sense of a person regarded as a mainstay or support for something is recorded from Middle English; Pillars of Society was the English title (1888) of a play by Ibsen.
Pillars of Hercules an ancient name for two promontories on either side of the Strait of Gibraltar (the Rock of Gibraltar and Mount Acho in Ceuta), held by legend to have been parted by the arm of Hercules.