The Collaborative International Dictionary
Quatrefeuille \Qua"tre*feuille\, Quatrefoil \Qua"tre*foil\, n. Same as Quarterfoil.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
Wiktionary
n. 1 (context architecture English) A symmetrical shape that forms the overall outline of four partially-overlapping circles of the same diameter. 2 (context heraldiccharge English) A stylized flower or leaf with four lobes.
Wikipedia
In art, architecture, and traditional Christian symbolism, the quatrefoil is a type of decorative framework consisting of a symmetrical shape which forms the overall outline of four partially overlapping circles of the same diameter. The word quatrefoil means "four leaves", from Latin quattuor, four, plus folium, a leaf.) and applies to general four-lobed shapes in various contexts. It is also used as a heraldic charge.
Usage examples of "quatrefoil".
It touched anonymous shoulders, shut eyes, tangled hair, the black cloaks with the simple white quatrefoil emblem of the Guards, and the hard gleam of steel.
She slipped between two shaggy-barked fir trees to wait, her dark cloak blending with the gloom of the shadowy afternoon, the white quatrefoil emblem of the Guards on her shoulder like a patch of snow on wet-darkened wood.
Beneath his window was a neat garden, scruffy now with autumn brownness, in the center of which was a formal quatrefoil pond, the water green with algae and rippling in the brisk wind.
The centre design is a quatrefoil, inside which is a lamb with nimbus, and the letters AGNV DI.
While she and the others were stripping to their undertunics and wrapping their hands and wrists, the Icefalcon again put on the soft jerkin of black-dyed wolf-hide he wore on patrol, marked with the white quatrefoil emblem of the Guards of Gae, and pulled on over it a heavier vest, and his gloves.
It consists of five lights, the two outer of which are grouped in a single arch, with a quatrefoil piercing in its head.
These lights are coupled in pairs by four arches with a quatrefoil in the head of each, and again formed in groups of four by an ogee arch above the other arches.
In the head of the larger arch is a quatrefoil, at the bottom of which are two carved brackets for sculpture.
In the heads of the smaller arches are quatrefoil openings decorated in the same way.
Now the only light in the dim narthex came from small, dusty quatrefoil windows high above.
Traced in red was a quatrefoil within a square, the corners filled up with what had evidently been the four Cherubic figures, though only the Winged Ox was clearly traceable.
Within the quatrefoil was a seated Figure, with something like scales in one hand, apparently representing our Lord in His glory.
Guards were moving around it, dark ghostly shapes, the brotherhood of the sword, their stained black tunics marked with the white quatrefoil emblem of their company.
It flickered in a warm amber radiance over scarred faces, frayed black surcoats with their white quatrefoil emblem, and seedy old blankets making shift as cloaks.
The football-shaped sci-deck stood four feet higher than the command deck, flanked by stumpy steps both forward and aft of it Up there were the engineering master systems monitor and the science station, neatly fenced off by a wrist-high curved metal wall punched with quatrefoil designs.