corbel

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Definitions (13)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. noun 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.
  2. transitive verb To provide with or support by a corbel or corbels.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (7)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (2)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (2)

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Examples

  • Overhead, the bare pine beams that supported the flat roof, and which I would learn to call "vigas," were dark brown stripes against the white ceiling, each ending in a wooden corbel where it met the wall. —  The Turquoise Mask
  • Men marveled at the fluted stone columns rising to hold the massive, cut-stone corbel along the length of the side walls at the base of the gathering hall's barrel ceiling. —  Soul of the Fire
  • It had square towers at each end of it, and corbel led battlements, long, wide windows on the lower floors, and very small dormer ones tucked into irregular roofs. —  A Kind Of Magic
  • While she was thinking about him, her eye lit on a new corbel being installed by the builders. —  The Pillars of the Earth
  • 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 —  Notes and Queries, Number 76, April 12, 1851 A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc
 

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Corbel has been looked up 221 times, favorited 0 times, listed 11 times, and commented on 3 times.

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Etymologies (4)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. 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.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (3)

  1. Also corbell, corbil, corbill (cf. corbell), from Old French corbel, French corbeau, a corbel, prop, a little basket, = Portuguese corbelha, feminine, = Italian corbello, from Middle Latin *corbellus, masculine, corbella, feminine (also corbulus, masculine), diminutive of Latin corbis, a basket: see corb, corb, corbeil. Cf. corbet.
  2. from corbel, n.
  3. from Middle English *corbel, corbyal, from Old French corbel, French corbeau, a raven, diminutive of corp, corb, corf, from Latin corvus, a raven, a crow: see Corvus, corbie.
 

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/ˈkɔrbɛl/
by American Heritage

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