Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A structure, usually brick or stone, built against a wall for support or reinforcement.
- noun Something resembling a buttress, as.
- noun The flared base of certain tree trunks.
- noun A horny growth on the heel of a horse's hoof.
- noun Something that serves to support, prop, or reinforce.
- transitive verb To support or reinforce with a buttress.
- transitive verb To sustain, prop, or bolster.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A wall or abutment built along a stream to prevent the logs in a drive from cutting the bank or jamming.
- noun The angle formed on the plantar surface of the hoof by the junction of the wall with the bar.
- To support by a buttress; hence, to prop or prop up, literally or figuratively.
- noun A structure built against a wall, for the purpose of giving it stability.
- noun Figuratively, any prop or support.
- noun In farriery, an instrument of steel set in wood, for paring the hoof of a horse.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- transitive verb To support with a buttress; to prop; to brace firmly.
- noun (Arch.) A projecting mass of masonry, used for resisting the thrust of an arch, or for ornament and symmetry.
- noun Anything which supports or strengthens.
- noun See
Flying buttress .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun architecture A
brick or stonestructure built against another structure tosupport it. - noun Anything that serves to support something; a
prop . - noun botany A buttress-root.
- noun climbing A feature jutting prominently out from a mountain or rock; a
crag , abluff . - verb To support something
physically with, or as if with, aprop or buttress. - verb To support something or someone by supplying
evidence ; tocorroborate orsubstantiate .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb make stronger or defensible
- noun a support usually of stone or brick; supports the wall of a building
- verb reinforce with a buttress
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word buttress.
Examples
-
Salvini, a noted Italian democrat, was right on the mark when he observed: "The widespread ignorance of events is the main buttress of injustice".
-
And when this policy seemed in danger of leading to regression as a result of electoral defeat, the commit ment to electoral (hence revisionist) activism was characterized as a buttress to the established theory of societal breakdown rather than as a major concession to revisionist ideology.
Dictionary of the History of Ideas J. P. NETTL 1968
-
To the right of the buttress is a long two-cusped lancet light; to the left may be traced, perhaps, the outline of an original round-arched window; while on both sides there are sloping lines in the masonry, as if there had been an acutely-pointed gable here.
Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ripon A Short History of the Church and a Description of Its Fabric Cecil Walter Charles Hallett
-
Close to this window, and rising up just above the sill of the clerestory windows, is a narrow, flat buttress, which is probably of the same date as the window.
Bell's Cathedrals: Chichester (1901) A Short History & Description Of Its Fabric With An Account Of The Diocese And See Hubert C. Corlette
-
The end of the buttress was a foot or two below the level of the leads, where Clara stood.
Wilfrid Cumbermede George MacDonald 1864
-
ChangeWave's survey results on dropped calls buttress the complaints made by iPhone users since Apple introduced the smartphone: AT&T's network performance is sub-standard.
PCWorld 2010
-
Dr. LACEY: And in some cases, people even change what they eat, because many times, what you'll see in a person who's sleep deprived is they will tend to snack more on high-carb types of foods and snacks in order to kind of buttress their general energy level in an attempt to kind of self-stimulate and keep themselves more awake.
-
Dr. LACEY: And in some cases, people even change what they eat, because many times, what you'll see in a person who's sleep deprived is they will tend to snack more on high-carb types of foods and snacks in order to kind of buttress their general energy level in an attempt to kind of self-stimulate and keep themselves more awake.
-
Dr. LACEY: And in some cases, people even change what they eat, because many times, what you'll see in a person who's sleep deprived is they will tend to snack more on high-carb types of foods and snacks in order to kind of buttress their general energy level in an attempt to kind of self-stimulate and keep themselves more awake.
-
Dr. LACEY: And in some cases, people even change what they eat, because many times, what you'll see in a person who's sleep deprived is they will tend to snack more on high-carb types of foods and snacks in order to kind of buttress their general energy level in an attempt to kind of self-stimulate and keep themselves more awake.
chained_bear commented on the word buttress
Thanks, Weirdnet.
August 24, 2008
bilby commented on the word buttress
Female butter.
February 9, 2009
sionnach commented on the word buttress
Right. So I guess that mattress means female matter, address is a female adder, suppress a female supper, and that repress and redress are female reapers and readers, respectively.
February 9, 2009