Definitions

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

  • noun A projecting structure, such as a beam, that is supported at one end and carries a load at the other end or along its length.
  • noun A member, such as a beam, that projects beyond a fulcrum and is supported by a balancing member or a downward force behind the fulcrum.
  • noun A bracket or block supporting a balcony or cornice.
  • intransitive verb To construct as or in the manner of a cantilever.
  • intransitive verb To extend outward as or in the manner of a cantilever.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun See cantaliver.

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

  • noun Same as cantalever.

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

  • noun architecture A beam anchored at one end and projecting into space, such as a long bracket projecting from a wall to support a balcony.
  • verb To project in the manner of a cantilever, or to project (something) by means of a cantilever

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

  • noun projecting horizontal beam fixed at one end only
  • verb construct with girders and beams such that only one end is fixed
  • verb project as a cantilever

Etymologies

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

[Perhaps cant + lever.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Registered first in the 17th Century: 1660s, probably from cant (2) + lever, but earliest form (c.1610) was cantlapper. First element also may be Sp. can - "dog", an architect's term for an end of timber jutting out of a wall, on which beams rested.

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Examples

  • The construction of the arched roof is on the plan which engineers know as the cantilever, and not that of the Roman arch.

    The North Pole Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club 1888

  • They together form what is called a cantilever; if you lay the letter V on its side, the open end will represent roughly the place where the arch and girders start from the tower.

    Chatterbox, 1906 Various 1873

  • And with the change came the bridging - over period -- the kind of cantilever which hope thrusts out from one side of the bank of the swift-flowing stream of adversity in the belief that somebody on the other side of the chasm will build the other half, and the two form a highway leading to a change of scene and renewed prosperity.

    Peter: a novel of which he is not the hero Francis Hopkinson Smith 1876

  • Indeed, during the same period, inconsistencies and difficulties of using standard, "cantilever" approximations were realised and a true elastic solution was obviously needed to settle the controversy.

    iMechanica - Comments 2009

  • Comment on Free beer & hotdogs at the Gowanus Yacht Club this weekend by Jacqueline Jones Comment on Watty & Meg to replace Caffé Carciofo by Cobble Hill Blog » Watty & Meg signage going up right now Studio for Civil Architecture has created a proposal for enclosing the BQE cantilever which is schedule for

    Brooklyn Heights Blog 2009

  • For the next few years, you can watch the new eastern span of the Bay Bridge being constructed adjacent to the existing "cantilever" section.

    Netvouz - new bookmarks 2008

  • For the next few years, you can watch the new eastern span of the Bay Bridge being constructed adjacent to the existing "cantilever" section.

    Netvouz - new bookmarks 2008

  • For the next few years, you can watch the new eastern span of the Bay Bridge being constructed adjacent to the existing "cantilever" section.

    Netvouz - new bookmarks 2008

  • For the next few years, you can watch the new eastern span of the Bay Bridge being constructed adjacent to the existing "cantilever" section.

    Netvouz - new bookmarks 2008

  • I'd have sworn my cantilever was the only one that could span Michamac Strait. "

    Out of the Primitive Robert Ames Bennet 1912

Comments

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  • Way to go, WordNet. *rolls eyes*

    January 11, 2008

  • That clears that up.

    January 11, 2008

  • Cantilevering is, as I learned half a minute ago, an occasional locomotor mode of some lemurs, defined as

    "holding on to the substrate with a pair of limbs only and leaning across a gap to grasp another support" Warren & Crompton (1997) Am J Phys Anthr.

    June 24, 2008

  • Come on mate, think positive, yes you can.

    December 15, 2018