Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A usually curved outdoor bench with a high back.
- n. An often semicircular portico with seats that was used in ancient Greece and Rome as a place for discussions.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. In ancient architecture, a raised platform with steps, in the open air, often by a roadside or in some other public place, provided with seats for the purpose of repose and conversation. The form of the exedra was arbitrary, but it was always open to the sun and air. The term is now sometimes applied to an apse, a recess, or a large niche in a wall, or a porch or chapel projecting from a large building. Also, less properly, exhedra.
Wiktionary
- n. architecture A semicircular recess, with stone benches, used as a place for discussion.
- n. by extension A curved bench with a high back.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Class. Antiq.) A room in a public building, furnished with seats.
- n. The projection of any part of a building in a rounded form.
- n. Any out-of-door seat in stone, large enough for several persons; esp., one of curved form.
Etymologies
- From Ancient Greek ἐξ (ex, "out of") + ἕδρα (hedra, "seat"). (Wiktionary)
- Latin, from Greek : ex-, ex- + hedrā, seat. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The "exedra" in the western bordering wall of the street.”
“Antonius chooses to compose his thoughts while walking in the portico. 111 Crassus, in contrast, retires to an exedra, where he devotes his midday respite to "the closest and most careful meditation.”
Architecture and Memory: The Renaissance Studioli of Federico da Montefeltro
“Along with the contemplative eddies in the medieval cathedral,30 intimate domestic settings modeled after the ancient Roman exedra and cubiculum — described by Vitruvius and Pliny and unearthed in the 1470s — provided prosthetic armatures for thought.”
Architecture and Memory: The Renaissance Studioli of Federico da Montefeltro
“Restoration drawing of a circular exedra and sarcophagus”
“But those quibbles apart, even old hands at the Capitoline Museum should try to take a look at the new exedra, and prepare – like the locals -- to be surprised.”
“As a tribute to his parents, Houdini commissioned his friend Oscar Teale to design an extravagant exedra that used many tons of Vermont granite.”
“Congressional hearings, testimony at covert activity and contacts death of in Delavan, Wisconsin difficulties of in getting paid escapes of, see escapes exedra of and fame fan mail to and fate films of financial struggle of and fistfighting and gambling in Garnett, Kansas gives documents to Hardeen injuries of insurance inventions”
“In the eastern exedra, one of the slabs was absent, creating a gap of 0.70 by 0.90 meters.”
“Both bordering walls contain an exedra (a rectangular recess), 0.90 meters deep, but these are not situated exactly opposite one another.”
“One peculiar feature, which thus far remains unexplained, is that these supporting walls were on either side interrupted by a small rectangular exedra (0.9 by 0.9 meters; 0.91 meters in height) that do not face each other.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘exedra’.
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phrontistery - e
from phrontistery.info
ecclesiarchy, ecclesiastry, ecdemomania, echinuliform, echoism, echolalia, echopraxia, eclaircise, ?claircissement, eclat, ?clat, eclegme and 616 more...
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250 Further Spelling Words
Another compilation of spelling words suitable for intermediate to advanced spellers.
venturi, aesir, affenpinscher, rottweiler, amanuensis, balletomane, hansard, sangfroid, yukata, capriccio, cuisse, heriot and 237 more...
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extra room
An add-on to Trivet's list elbow room and Lampbane's list 2BDRM W/VU that tries not to duplicate Trivet's and Lampbane's existing rooms. Virtual, allegorical and proverbial rooms accepted.
scullery, suite, porch, screened porch, breakfast room, atheneum, attic, hall, dressing room, passageway, corridor, fusuma and 126 more...
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The Grandeur That Was Rome
Friends, Romans, Countrymen: lend me your words
transpadane, palatine, capitoline, athenaeum, aedile, decemvir, cincinnatus, spqr, quirites, exedra, propraetor, Quirinal and 70 more...
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The Ex-acting Xray
Out of this world via the "X-express".
exorbitant, exuberant, extant, exultant, expectorate, exhilarate, excommunicate, exacting, extenuate, exculpate, extirpate, expostulate and 110 more...
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bintalshamsa's list
My Favorite Words
weltschmerz, perspicacity, idée fixe, invigilator, salubrious, tchotchke, ex nihilo, invidious, malapropism, naïve, sardonic, elide and 1401 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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Clearinghouse
For stuff to simply reside.
calcar, pinion, espadrille, antipodes, peregrine, cormorant, tanager, vireo, farrago, undervest, passerine, oscine and 881 more...
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bluemartian's Words
spruiker, adytum, ruminate, exedra, moonglade, spindrift, syzygy, glissade, skysill, pellucid, aquarelle, tatterdemalion and 108 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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left-eyed flounders and other stretches
created to break clichés and cause temporary floundering
bothidae, flatfish, parabolic parables, tonguefish, after-image, anaglyph, Fotheringhay, aegilops, asquint, chicane, exedra, piñon jay and 66 more...
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the architect
Urban edifices, everything to do with architecture.
voussoir, faience, volute, pronaos, apse, anticum, nave, portico, piazza, agora, pilaster, caryatid and 55 more...
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Words I've Found While Reading and Di...
see title
demijohn, eiderdown, aeolotropic, haptic, fecundity, mojibake, stochastic, nibble, homoskedastic, Entscheidungsproblem, hirsute, mutule and 68 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for exedra.
widdershins In this Muslim world, this would be called a mihrab, or prayer niche.
Dec 22, 2007