Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun An ornamental bracket used in series under a cornice, especially a cornice of the Corinthian, Composite, or Ionic orders.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun In architecture, a block carved into the form of an enriched bracket, used normally under the corona in the cornice of the Corinthian and Composite, and occasionally of the Roman Ionic, orders, and in Renaissance and modern designs based upon these, and also in appropriate forms in the various medieval styles; a corbel; a bracket. Compare
mutule . Also spelledmodillon .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Arch.) The enriched block or horizontal bracket generally found under the cornice of the Corinthian and Composite entablature, and sometimes, less ornamented, in the Ionic and other orders; -- so called because of its arrangement at regulated distances.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun architecture A
decoratively carved supporting block atop a column.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun (architecture) one of a set of ornamental brackets under a cornice
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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Over the arched window behind the ten Melchisedec pulpits, and just beneath the vertical modillion which forms the keystone of the ornamental wooden arch, is the text, "Holiness unto the Lord."
Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 of Popular Literature and Science Various
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Her raven-black hair, copious both in length and volume and figured like a deep river, rippled by the wind, was parted in the centre and combed smoothly down, ornamenting her pink temples with a flowing tracery that passed round to its modillion windings on a graceful crown.
Shandygaff Christopher Morley 1923
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Though the first designers of the modillion were probably Greeks, it must, nevertheless, be taken as really a Roman device, worthily completing the essentially Roman Corinthian order.
A Text-Book of the History of Architecture Seventh Edition, revised 1890
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The Corinthian order appears here complete with its modillion cornice, but the crispness of the detail and the fineness of the execution are Greek and not Roman.
A Text-Book of the History of Architecture Seventh Edition, revised 1890
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Albert Sherwood built this house with its distinctive modillion cornice on land he bought in 1913.
unknown title 2009
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without the cap breadth of the modillion 2 & frac38;
reesetee commented on the word modillion
a bracket placed on the underside of the corona of a cornice
February 11, 2007