Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A horizontal structural member, such as a beam or stone, that spans an opening, as between the uprights of a door or window or between two columns or piers.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. In architecture, a horizontal piece of timber or stone resting on the jambs of a door or window, or spanning any other open space in a wall or in a columnar construction, and serving to support superincumbent weight.
- n. See lingel.
Wiktionary
- n. architecture A horizontal structural beam spanning an opening, such as between the uprights of a door or a window, and which supports the wall above.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Arch.) A horizontal member spanning an opening, and carrying the superincumbent weight by means of its strength in resisting crosswise fracture.
WordNet 3.0
- n. horizontal beam used as a finishing piece over a door or window
Etymologies
- From Middle English lyntel, from Middle French lintel, from Latin limitaris ("indicating a boundary") (Wiktionary)
- Middle English, from Old French, probably alteration of lintier, from Vulgar Latin *līmitāris, of a threshold (meaning influenced by Latin līmen, threshold), from Latin, on a border, from līmes, līmit-, boundary. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The word isn't lintel, which is the horizontal top of a doorway.”
“The principal item is the upper cave, small, square, and apparently still used by the Arabs: in the middle of the lintel is a lump looking like the mutilated capital of a column.”
“Fig. 98: Make sure the lintel is the correct size for wide openings.”
“There was once a well-known Scotch architect who held that the column and the lintel was the only permissible form of construction, and with this limitation and ill-selected Greek details he produced some fantastically ugly buildings.”
“On the lintel is the stationmaster's name painted in small white letters, like the name of the landlord over the doorway of an inn.”
“The lintel is the horizontal crosspiece over the door.”
“Fragments of the carved granite "lintel" found by Lansing, and a line drawing of one of the fragments of the lintel portraying King Khasekhemwy in festival costume”
“To eliminate the danger of shearing, it is therefore preferable to increase the length of the part of the lintel which is held in the wall, allowing a minimum of 20 cm for small openings.”
“The date 1685 is on one of the blocks, and 1672 on a lintel which is now placed with them.”
“The Oxford English Dictionary offers the Latin limin as "lintel" which is the beam that runs above the door; and windows too for that matter.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘lintel’.
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Gene Wolfe
Please contribute your favorite words from any of Gene Wolfe’s books to this prize-winning list.
In case you come across words in this list which are too commonplace to fit in, please ...gallipot, roost, badelaire, oblesque, execration, dhole, amschaspand, arctother, chalcedony, penitence, asimi, autarch and 839 more...
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LIT - Ulysses - key words and phrases
money cowrie, bedraggle, omphalos, ineluctable, postprandial, bladderwrack, modality barnacle..., loofah, shipworm, cither, embattle, Malachi and 503 more...
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RELI - words with Biblical connotations
Words in the Bible evoking biblical stories or with special spiritual meaning. Proper names have been reduced to the minimum.
ark, judgement, holy, saint, baptism, spirit, love, eternal, altar, balsam, covenant, flood and 1115 more...
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RELI - words you immediately associat...
advent, almighty, altar, anoint, apostle, archangel, ark, Balaam, baptism, baptist, baptize, begotten and 341 more...
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Words build meanings from origins( et...
These come from gamma meditation ,I think.
discursive, exogenous, machinations, purportedly, sumptuous, congruity, cantankerous, incongruous, festoon, hessian, ratiocinative, stratigraphic and 2057 more...
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Thresholds
we are all just passing through.
(boundaries, portals and liminal spaces/times)cockcrow, interface, thin line, portal, postern, littoral, interstice, port, membrane, skin, crepuscule, dawn and 309 more...
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LIT - Odyssey - key words and phrases
Key words of the Odyssey by Homer in English including all those famous repeating epitethons like
"bright-eyed Athene"
"wine-dark sea"
"rosy-fingered dawn"
"long suf...Odysseus, sea, Athene, goddess, land, Achaean, wind, wave, Ithaca, lead, Poseidon, mortal and 732 more...
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phrontistery - l
from phrontistery.info
labarum, labefactation, labeorphily, labidometer, labile, lability, labiomancy, labret, labrose, labtebricole, lac, laccolith and 496 more...
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Blood Meridian
scullery, Leonid, parricide, boll, boatswain, walleyed, divest, diffident, rookery, coiffure, heady, garish and 177 more...
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Construction Zone
Help me build a list of things you'd find in a construction zone or at a construction site.
rebar, lumber, cement, plywood, hard hat, hammer, nails, nail gun, insulation, electrical wiring, wood, crane and 62 more...
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hildjj's Words
bookmarklet, demisemiquaver, zeitgeist, hermeneutics, oligarch, quisling, absinthe, mellifluent, verisimilitude, implacable, necrotic, nacreous and 243 more...
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words found to be generally pleasing
alabaster, mahogany, camphor, coalesce, spire, portmanteau, gadabout, palaver, dolor, dour, dun, luminesce and 610 more...
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Just 'cause I like 'em, L
lisle, lahar, loupe, labret, latten, luster, lagomorph, lamentation, limicole, lunge, lobtail, latifolious and 182 more...
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Infinite Jest
Words taken from Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace.
prorector, monograph, post-fourier, snuffle, rototremble, creatus, enfilade, subanimalistic, balletic, espadrilles, leonine, cirri and 1153 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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Vocab++
Words as I learn them.
fetid, mezzanine, hiatus, austerity, subliminal, resplendent, implacable, impugn, debase, exiguous, cirque, holster and 2538 more...
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