Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. The sharp edge or ridge formed by two surfaces meeting at an angle, as in a molding.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A sharp edge, as of a squared stone or piece of wood. Specifically
- n. In architecture, the line, edge, or hip in which the two straight or curved surfaces of a body, forming an exterior angle, meet; especially, the sharp ridge between two adjoining channels of a Doric column.
Wiktionary
- n. architecture A sharp edge or ridge formed by the intersection of two curved surfaces
- n. UK, slang Buttocks.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Arch.) The sharp edge or salient angle formed by two surfaces meeting each other, whether plane or curved; -- applied particularly to the edges in moldings, and to the raised edges which separate the flutings in a Doric column.
Etymologies
- From Old French areste, from Latin arista ("beard (of grain), fishbone") (Wiktionary)
- Alteration of Old French areste, fishbone, spine; see arête. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“By being national they should surely have their heads up the arris' of every brave son of the red half of Liverpool.”
“Best to * arris and hope she's feeling better by now.”
“Only the gilding of the room in some degree brought itself into keeping with the splendours outside, stray darts of light seizing upon it and lengthening themselves out along fillet, quirk, arris, and moulding, till wasted away.”
“He stretched out his arm to seize the projecting arris of a larger block than ordinary, and so help himself up, when his hand lighted plump upon a substance differing in the greatest possible degree from what he had expected to seize — hard stone.”
“If pieces of the arris root are dressed with the oil of the mango, and placed for six months in a hole made in the trunk of the sisu tree, and are then taken out and made up into an ointment, and applied to the lingam, this is said to serve as the means of subjugating women.”
“I watched some of a terrible film that I hope no one else has to suffer, called Mrs 'arris in Paris which really lowered my opinion of Angela Landsbury, who played a cockney woman.”
“The framework of a motor vehicle window.or, in the perhaps clearer words of the OED,A side of an opening or recess which is at right angles to the face of the work; esp. the vertical side of a doorway or window-opening between the door- or window-frame and the arris 'the sharp edge formed by the angular contact of two plane or curved surfaces'.”
“Screw rods are also recommended for stairs with arris for insertion.”
“In the case of inserted stairs without arris for insertion of the steps, the stair foot and stair head may be inserted in the mortise”
“The steps may be designed with or without arris for insertion.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘arris’.
-
Rare Words - A
Not just rare words, but thousands of RARE WORDS WITH DEFINITIONS.
If you want to see the definitions, too, go to
http://phrontistery.i...aba, abacinate, abactor, abaculus, abaft, abampere, abapical, abarticular, abasement, abasia, abask, abatis and 1214 more...
-
Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
-
phrontistery - a
from phrontistery.info
aba, abacinate, abactor, abaculus, abaft, abampere, abasia, abask, abb, abba, abbatial, abra and 1214 more...
-
Mat8iou's interesting words
Words I've come across & want to remember.
bloviation, elginism, panegyric, infandous, boke, pangram, quine, pareto principle, panopticon, snib, escutcheon, bokeh and 129 more...
-
discoveries
These are lexical items new to me that I've discovered in actual use (i.e. not in dictionaries, lists, or this site).
Looking back over this list, I haven't the slightest idea what mos...haymow, hawsepipe, stridor, bariatric, autotelic, apotropaic, cyanotype, tourelle, autobody, zudecca, stifado, corbeille and 1073 more...
-
What David Foster Wallace circled in ...
ablative, ablaut, abulia, acephalous, ACTH, adit, adumbrate, agrapha, ailanthus, aleatory, alfresco, algolagnia and 474 more...
-
British Cant & Slang, Old & New
Mostly, the cant words come from my reprint of Francis Grose's 1785 dictionary of 'The Vulgar Tongue', while the more modern slang has been found at various online sources, e.g. this online diction...
bog-standard, bumbaclot, brown trouser moment, bingo wings, bobfoc, babber, sweating, tantadlin tart, taplash, timber toe, tray trip, twiddle-diddles and 209 more...
-
What David Foster Wallace Circled in ...
http://www.slate.com/id/2250784/
ablative absolute, ablaut, abulia, acephalous, ACTH, adit, adumbrate, agrapha, aleatory, ailanthus, alfresco, algolagnia and 482 more...
-
fearraigh's Words
heretofore, seldom, cunt, calamity, overhead, phalanx, flunky, factotum, terrestrial, dormant, afflatus, periphery and 156 more...
-
To Learn
paratonnerre, apophenia, aposiopesis, compline, rebarbatiive, comity, averruncate, apodictic, apophasis, farouche, accismus, abligurition and 157 more...
-
You May Tell Yourself, "This Is Not M...
.
cornice, balustrade, dado, bargeboard, buttress, clerestory, crenellation, cupola, corbel, dentil, vergeboard, quatrefoil and 101 more...
-
Loveliest Words
ephemeral, silvics, bathysmal, iridial, xanthic, chrysalis, ethereal, mellifluous, murmur, opulent, susurrus, tessellate and 47 more...
-
perhapsolutely's Words
polyradiculoneuro..., abulia, abubble, abscission, abaft, zareba, abatis, abigail, abiogenesis, ablate, ablaut, abo and 1705 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for arris.

qroqqa Most of the 5000 or so known species [of harvestmen or daddy-long-legs, of order Opiliones] live in tropical South America and South-east Asia, but they also live in damp shaded areas in all climates, including the sub-arctic, and can sometimes be found in droves beneath the arris rails of fences around temperate suburban gardens.
—Colin Tudge, The Variety of Life, p.317 Nov 17, 2008
bilby "Buttocks, 'arse'. Convoluted Cockney rhyming slang for 'arse'; Arris, an abbreviation of Aristotle, rhyming with bottle, and thereafter leading to bottle and glass rhyming with 'arse'."
- peevish.co.uk Sep 12, 2008