lunette

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Architecture A small, circular or crescent-shaped opening in a vaulted roof.
2. n. Architecture A crescent-shaped or semicircular space, usually over a door or window, that may contain another window, a sculpture, or a mural.
3. n. A fortification that has two projecting faces and two parallel flanks.
4. n. A broad, low-lying, typically crescent-shaped mound of sandy or loamy matter that is formed by the wind, especially along the windward side of a lake basin.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. In fortification, a detached work with flanks, presenting a salient angle to the enemy, intended for the protection of avenues, bridges, and the curtains of fieldworks.
2. n. In farriery, a halfhorseshoe, having only the front.
3. n. A blinder for the eye of a horse.
4. n. In architecture
5. n. The aperture formed by the intersection of any vault by a vault of smaller dimensions; particularly, such an aperture in a vaulted ceiling for the admission of light. Of this class are the upper lights of the naves of St. Peter's at Rome and St. Paul's in London.
6. n. A small aperture or window, especially if curved or circular, in a roof.
7. n. In a glass-furnace, the flue connecting the fire-chamber and the pot-chamber.
8. n. A watch-crystal flattened in the center; also, a kind of concavo-convex lens for spectacles.
9. n. In archaeology, a crescent ornament made of thin gold and intended as a diadem or gorget, found in ancient tombs of various epochs.
10. n. A work of art of such a shape as to fill a lunette, especially a painting or panel of such shape: as, the lunettes of Correggio.
11. n. One of the two open loops of steel which constitute the guard of the ordinary fleuret or foil used in fencing.
12. n. In artillery, an iron ring at the end of the trail-plate of a gun-carriage, to be placed over the pintle-hook of the limber in limbering up.
13. n. In the Roman Catholic Church, a crescent-shaped or circular case of crystal fitted into the monstrance for the purpose of receiving the consecrated host for solemn exposition.
14. n. The circular hole in a guillotine in which the neck of the condemned rests.

Wiktionary

1. n. in the plural See lunettes.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. (Fort.) A fieldwork consisting of two faces, forming a salient angle, and two parallel flanks. See bastion.
2. n. (Far.) A half horseshoe, which lacks the sponge.
3. n. A kind of watch crystal which is more than ordinarily flattened in the center; also, a species of convexoconcave lens for spectacles.
4. n. A piece of felt to cover the eye of a vicious horse.
5. n. (Arch.) Any surface of semicircular or segmental form; especially, the piece of wall between the curves of a vault and its springing line.
6. n. An iron shoe at the end of the stock of a gun carriage.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. oval or circular opening; to allow light into a dome or vault
2. n. temporary fortification like a detached bastion