Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A decorative molding carried around an arched wall opening.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An ornamental molding or band of moldings on the face of an arch following the contour of the extrados; an arch-molding. Also called architrave.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The architectural member surrounding the curved opening of an arch, corresponding to the architrave in the case of a square opening.
  • noun More commonly, the molding or other ornaments with which the wall face of the voussoirs of an arch is charged.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun architecture An ornamental molding or band following the curve on the underside of an arch.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Italian archivolto or French archivolte (French, from Italian) : arco, arch (from Latin arcus) + volta, vault (from Latin volūta; see vault).]

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Examples

Comments

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  • The perceptual possession of a unit of space is practically instantaneous when, for example, an expert driver's eye takes in a highway symbol - the black mouth and neat archivolt within a red triangle...

    - Nabokov, Ada, or Ardor

    June 5, 2008