Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun An arched masonry support serving to bear thrust, as from a roof or vault, away from a main structure to an outer pier or buttress.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun architecture a buttress that stands apart from the structure that it supports, and is connected to it by an
arch (flyer ).
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a buttress that stands apart from the main structure and connected to it by an arch
Etymologies
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Examples
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treeseed commented on the word flying buttress
In architecture, a flying buttress, or arc-boutant, is usually on a religious building, used to transmit the thrust of a vault across an intervening space (which might be an aisle, chapel or cloister), to a buttress outside the building. The employment of the flying buttress means that the load bearing walls can contain cut-outs, such as for large windows, that would otherwise seriously weaken the vault walls.
The purpose of a buttress was to reduce the load on the vault wall. The majority of the load is carried by the upper part of the buttress, so making the buttress as a semi-arch provides almost the same load bearing capability, yet in a much lighter as well as a much cheaper structure. As a result, the buttress flies through the air, rather than resting on the ground and hence is known as a flying buttress.
_Wikipedia
February 6, 2008