Definition of "pergola"

The thick vegetation met overhead, interlacing into a natural pergola, and through this tunnel of verdure in a golden twilight flowed the green, pellucid river, beautiful in itself, but marvelous from the strange tints thrown by the vivid light from above filtered and tempered in its fall.

1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World […], London, New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton

By the little garden pergola open to the winds some fluttered peacocks were blotted nervelessly amid the dripping trees, their heads sunk back beneath their wings: while in the pergola itself, like a fallen storm-cloud, lolled a negress, her levelled, polecat eyes semi-veiled by the nebulous alchemy of the rainbow.

1919, Ronald Firbank, Valmouth, Duckworth, hardback edition, page 61

While both pergolas and arbors are most dramatic cloaked in climbing, flowing plants, only a pergola will stand naked as a piece of architecture.

2000, Gordon Bock, "Pergolas in perspective", Old-House Journal, July/August 2000

When I first saw the movie, Chocolat, my favorite element wasn't the plot or the character development or even the cinematography. It was the cloth-draped pergola under which a very special birthday dinner was served.

2009, Jerri Farris, Creating Garden Accents: Step-by-Step Instructions for 22 Projects, Creative Publishing International, published 2002, page 98