Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A bracket of stone, wood, brick, or other building material, projecting from the face of a wall and generally used to support a cornice or arch.
- v. To provide with or support by a corbel or corbels.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. In architecture, a piece of stone, wood, or iron projecting from the vertical face of a wall to support some superincumbent object. Corbels are of great variety in form, and are ornamented in many ways. They are much used in medieval architecture, forming supports for the beams of floors and of roofs, the machicolations of fortresses, the labels of doors and windows, etc.
- n. The vase or drum of the Corinthian column: so called from its resemblance to a basket.
- n. 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. The corbel is fringed with stiff hairs, and takes various forms, which are important characters in classification. It is said to be open when it is broken on the inner side by the articular cavity of the tarsus; closed, when the cavity does not attain it and the oval margin is complete; cavernose, when the external margin is produced and curved over the corbel, like a roof.
- To support on corbels.
- In architecture, to expand by extending each member of a series beyond the one below.
- n. A raven or crow; a corbie.
Wiktionary
- n. architecture A structural member jutting out of a wall to carry a superincumbent weight.
- v. transitive To furnish with a corbel or corbels; to support by a corbel; to make in the form of corbel.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Arch.) A bracket supporting a superincumbent object, or receiving the spring of an arch. Corbels were employed largely in Gothic architecture.
- v. To furnish with a corbel or corbels; to support by a corbel; to make in the form of corbel.
WordNet 3.0
- n. (architecture) a triangular bracket of brick or stone (usually of slight extent)
- v. furnish with a corbel
Etymologies
- 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. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“A corbel is a stone bracket that projects from a wall or corner, either to support a beam or for decoration.”
“The building dates back to the 16th century, but the object - known as a corbel - is believed to be from the late-13th to mid-14th century.”
“On these rested painted wooden sun-filtering shutters attached to a concrete corbel, which is in turn connected to the ring-beam.”
“A band of treble billet moulding runs under the lower windows; a double hatched moulding under the second tier; and immediately below the parapet is the ornament called the corbel table; these with the billet moulding round the clerestory windows, are in excellent preservation.”
“Will any of your correspondents be so kind as to inform me if the device on the corbel was the badge of the knights of the order of St. John of”
“The roof-shaft west of this bay, for some unknown reason, ends considerably short of the roof in a kind of corbel with rude foliage upon it.”
“I also was astonished by how different the aesthetic system wasthe vertiginous staircases, the corbel arches, the huge reliefs, etc.”
“There is also a corbel-arched tunnel that goes straight through to what may have been a secret exit.”
“I forgot to mention this on a corbel in the foyer.”
“Philosophy should not be a corbel erected on mystery to gaze upon it at its ease, without any other result than that of being convenient to curiosity.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘corbel’.
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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phrontistery - c
from phrontistery.info
czardas, cytometer, cytology, cytheromania, cystoscope, cystolith, cyrenaic, cypseline, cyprinoid, cyphonism, cynophobia, cytogenesis and 1298 more...
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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...
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Architectual terms
Any words to do with architecture or building materials, to help me write a fictional city for a novel.
welkin, cornice, gargoyle, quatrefoil, frieze, bargeboard, corbel, cupola, belvedere, steeple, widow's walk, minaret and 13 more...
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theolddirty's list
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wreckingball's Words
reprehensible, problematize, crepuscular, deleterious, pestilent, strumpet, draggletail, interrobang, meretricious, systematize, schadenfreude, capricious and 443 more...
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Castles and Keeps
Shamelessly ripped off from this site and others (to be named hereinafter). (Fair warning: for my own edification, I may add definitions/comments from the site, but you might want to just go there ...
abutment, adulterine, allure, angle-spur, apse, arbalest, arbalestier, arbalist, arcade, arch, armoury, arrow slit and 410 more...
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NeoVolt's Words
schadenfreude, serendipity, idiosyncrasy, loess, caducous, vagary, schematic, steeple, licentious, tangential, verisimilitude, vernacular and 385 more...
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words
diplopic, dolorous, farrago, surety, scuttlebutt, Arabesque, infarct, neurasthenia, lambent, expurge, univocal, simper and 395 more...
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looked up
Words I've come across while reading and looked up in the dictionary.
deesis, pendentive, revetment, aedicule, stemma, patera, ephod, entrepot, corbel, exedra, volute, archivolt and 1406 more...
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You May Tell Yourself, "This Is Not M...
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cornice, balustrade, dado, bargeboard, buttress, clerestory, crenellation, cupola, corbel, dentil, vergeboard, quatrefoil and 101 more...
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rememberers
prolix, ageusia, animadversion, anodyne, antic, arabesque, beadle, brachymetropia, colophon, desquamation, diaphoresis, diegesis and 3248 more...
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Spelling Bee 2011
HMH - Riverside / Rancho Cucamonga Office
onerous, ribald, scimitar, euchre, affidavit, pomegranate, Weevil, unbudgeable, corbel, fluorescent, googol, hemorrhage and 14 more...
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C
concupiscence, Cadmean victory, caprice, caustic, circumambient, circumlocution, claque, colonnade, comprador, concatenate, concours d'élégance, concourse and 61 more...
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Architectural Nomenclature
See that part on that building?
mutule, muntin, modillion, voussoir, volute, corbel, trefoil, peristyle, guilloche, rinceau, transept, grisaille and 45 more...
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alserina's Words
bizarre, reverie, illusory, delinquent, peachy, blithe, melancholia, liquescent, purulent, peristyle, pergola, fleur de lis and 6 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for corbel.
mollusque Citation at retrograde amnesia. Nov 7, 2008
chained_bear "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) Aug 24, 2008
reesetee 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 Feb 23, 2007