Definitions

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

  • noun A piece of stone, wood, brick, or other building material, projecting from the face of a wall and generally used to support a cornice or arch.
  • transitive verb To provide with or support by a corbel or corbels.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To support on corbels.
  • In architecture, to expand by extending each member of a series beyond the one below.
  • noun A raven or crow; a corbie.
  • noun In architecture, a piece of stone, wood, or iron projecting from the vertical face of a wall to support some superincumbent object.
  • noun The vase or drum of the Corinthian column: so called from its resemblance to a basket.
  • noun In entomology, the truncated oval tip of the tibia, when, as in many Rhynchophera, the insertion of the tarsus is a little above the tip on the inner side.

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

  • noun (Arch.) A bracket supporting a superincumbent object, or receiving the spring of an arch. Corbels were employed largely in Gothic architecture.
  • transitive verb To furnish with a corbel or corbels; to support by a corbel; to make in the form of a corbel.
  • transitive verb to furnish with a corbel of courses, each projecting beyond the one next below it.

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

  • noun architecture A structural member jutting out of a wall to carry a superincumbent weight.
  • verb transitive To furnish with a corbel or corbels; to support by a corbel; to make in the form of a corbel.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun (architecture) a triangular bracket of brick or stone (usually of slight extent)
  • verb furnish with a corbel

Etymologies

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

[Middle English, from Old French, diminutive of corp, raven (from the similarity of its shape to that of a raven's beak), from Latin corvus.]

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Examples

Comments

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  • A bracket of stone, wood, brick, or other building material that projects from the face of a wall and is generally used to support a cornice or arch

    February 23, 2007

  • "Projecting stone (or timber) feature on a wall to support an overhanging parapet, platform, turret, etc." (similar to definition listed, but different enough to add)

    August 24, 2008

  • Citation at retrograde amnesia.

    November 7, 2008