Crossword clues for buttress
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Buttress \But"tress\, n. [OE. butrasse, boterace, fr. F. bouter to push; cf. OF. bouteret (nom. sing. and acc. pl. bouterez) buttress. See Butt an end, and cf. Butteris.]
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(Arch.) A projecting mass of masonry, used for resisting the thrust of an arch, or for ornament and symmetry.
Note: When an external projection is used merely to stiffen a wall, it is a pier.
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Anything which supports or strengthens. ``The ground pillar and buttress of the good old cause of nonconformity.''
--South.Flying buttress. See Flying buttress.
Buttress \But"tress\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Buttressed (?); p. pr. & vb. n. Buttressing.] To support with a buttress; to prop; to brace firmly.
To set it upright again, and to prop and buttress it up
for duration.
--Burke.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
early 14c., from Old French (arc) botrez "flying buttress," apparently from bouter "to thrust against," of Frankish origin (compare Old Norse bauta "to strike, beat"), from Proto-Germanic *butan, from PIE root *bhau- "to strike" (see butt (v.)).
late 14c., literal and figurative, from buttress (n.). Related: Buttressed; buttressing.
Wiktionary
n. 1 (context architecture English) A brick or stone structure built against another structure to support it. 2 Anything that serves to support something; a prop. 3 (context botany English) A buttress-root. 4 (context climbing English) A feature jutting prominently out from a mountain or rock; a crag, a bluff. 5 (context figurative English) Anything that supports or strengthens. vb. 1 To support something physically with, or as if with, a prop or buttress. 2 To support something or someone by supplying evidence; to corroborate or substantiate.
WordNet
n. a support usually of stone or brick; supports the wall of a building [syn: buttressing]
v. reinforce with a buttress; "Buttress the church"
make stronger or defensible; "buttress your thesis"
Wikipedia
A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. Buttresses are fairly common on more ancient buildings, as a means of providing support to act against the lateral (sideways) forces arising out of the roof structures that lack adequate bracing.
The term counterfort can be synonymous with buttress, and is often used when referring to dams, retaining walls and other structures holding back earth.
Early examples of buttresses are found on the Eanna Temple (ancient Uruk), dating to as early as the 4th millennium BCE.
Usage examples of "buttress".
As the side porches fronting the aisles are on the same level with the main porch, the bottom part of the front is bound together, and the divisions of nave and aisle, emphasised above by the prominent buttresses, are minimised below.
Thus, on the south the aisle buttresses are crowned by lofty pinnacles having at their bases niches, in some of which statues still remain.
At any rate, there are no pinnacles to the aisle buttresses on the north side, and, consequently, no flying buttresses.
The bays are marked by plain aisle buttresses, terminating in three-cornered caps, with a battlement of cusped stonework ornamented with finials behind them.
The aisle buttresses end some little way below the battlements of the aisle.
The buttresses separating it from the aisle are decorated with six storeys of niches, two to each storey, except the lowest, which contains only one.
The aisle windows have ogee gables above them with finials, and immediately above them a band of panelling running right across the exterior buttresses.
As if her thoughts had conjured him up, she saw Alee standing half-hidden behind the buttressed corner of the church wall.
Each one of the stones in the immense building, the little columns in the windows, the bell-towers of its piers, the flying buttresses of its apse, all have a murmur which I can distinguish, a language which I understand.
To strengthen it Lord Grimthorpe built buttresses, naturally following the division of the upper part of the walls, but thereby cutting across the arcading of the cloister walk in a most ugly fashion.
This remarkable artefact consisted of an elemental chunk of bedrock, grey and crystalline, carved into a complex geometrical form of curves and angles, incised niches and external buttresses, surmounted at the centre by a stubby vertical prong.
The buttresses of the aisles are decorated with gargoyles and crowned with pinnacles of a considerable size with crocketed spires and finials.
Also for the first time, Asia acquired a precise intellectual and historical dimension with which to buttress the myths of its geographic distance and vastness.
The taking of life being displeasing to Buddha, outside many of the temples old women and children earn a livelihood by selling sparrows, small eels, carp, and tortoises, which the worshipper sets free in honour of the deity, within whose territory cocks and hens and doves, tame and unharmed, perch on every jutty, frieze, buttress, and coigne of vantage.
A fairly argued case, I concede, and to buttress it Kyd appears to have been near Flambury last night, when he professed to be on the road for Wiltshire.