Minaret vs. Spire — What's the Difference?

Minaret (; Persian: گل‌دسته goldaste, Azerbaijani: minarə, Turkish: minare, from Arabic: منارة manarah or المنارة‎ menara) is a type of tower typically built into or adjacent to mosques. Minarets serve multiple purposes.

A spire is a tall, slender, pointed structure on top of a roof or tower, especially at the summit of church steeples. A spire may have a square, circular, or polygonal plan, with a roughly conical or pyramidal shape.

A tall slender tower attached to a mosque, having one or more projecting balconies from which a muezzin or a recording of a muezzin summons the people to prayer.

A top part or structure that tapers upward, such as a rock formation or steeple.

The tall slender tower of an Islamic mosque, from which the muezzin recites the adhan (call to prayer).

A slender, tapering plant part.

A slender, lofty tower attached to a mosque and surrounded by one or more projecting balconies, from which the summon to prayer is cried by the muezzin.

A spiral.

Slender tower with balconies

A single turn of a spiral; a whorl.

The area farthest from the aperture and nearest the apex on a coiled gastropod shell.

To furnish with a spire.

To rise and taper steeply.

The stalk or stem of a plant.

A young shoot of a plant; a spear.

Any of various tall grasses, rushes, or sedges, such as the marram, the reed canary-grass, etc.

A sharp or tapering point.

(architectural element) A tapering structure built on a roof or tower, especially as one of the central architectural features of a church or cathedral roof.

The top, or uppermost point, of anything; the summit.

(mining) A tube or fuse for communicating fire to the charge in blasting.

One of the sinuous foldings of a serpent or other reptile; a coil.

A spiral.

(geometry) The part of a spiral generated in one revolution of the straight line about the pole.

(of a seed, plant etc.) to sprout, to send forth the early shoots of growth; to germinate.

To grow upwards rather than develop horizontally.

(transitive) To furnish with a spire.

To breathe.

To breathe.

To shoot forth, or up in, or as if in, a spire.

A slender stalk or blade in vegetation; as, a spire grass or of wheat.

A tapering body that shoots up or out to a point in a conical or pyramidal form. Specifically (Arch.), the roof of a tower when of a pyramidal form and high in proportion to its width; also, the pyramidal or aspiring termination of a tower which can not be said to have a roof, such as that of Strasburg cathedral; the tapering part of a steeple, or the steeple itself.

A tube or fuse for communicating fire to the chargen in blasting.

The top, or uppermost point, of anything; the summit.

A spiral; a curl; a whorl; a twist.

A tall tower that forms the superstructure of a building (usually a church or temple) and that tapers to a point at the top