sconce

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A small defensive earthwork or fort.
2. n. A decorative wall bracket for holding candles or lights.
3. n. A flattened candlestick that has a handle.
4. n. Slang The human head or skull.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A lantern with a protecting shade; a dark lantern; any lantern.
2. n. A candlestick having the form of bracket projecting from a wall or column; also, a group of such candlesticks, forming, with an appliqué or flat, somewhat ornamented disk or plaque which seems to adhere to the wall, a decorative object. These were most commonly of brass during the years when sconces were most in use.
3. n. The socket for the candle in a candlestick of any form, especially when having a projecting rim around it.
4. n. A cover; a shelter; a protection; specifically, a screen or partition to cover or protect anything; a shed or hut for protection from the weather; a covered stall.
5. n. A work for defense, detached from the main works for some local object; a bulwark; a block-house; a fort, as for the defense of a pass or river.
6. n. A cover or protection for the head; a headpiece; a helmet.
7. n. Hence The head; the skull; the cranium, especially the top of it.
8. n. Brains; sense; wits; judgment or discretion.
9. n. A mulct; a fine. See sconce, v. t., 3.
10. n. A seat in old-fashioned open chimney-places; a chimney-seat.
11. n. A fragment of an ice-floe.
12. To fortify or defend with a sconce or block-house.
13. Same as ensconce.
14. To assess or tax at so much per head; mulct; fine; specifically, in the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, to put the name of in the college buttery-books by way of fine; mulct in a tankard of ale or the like for some offense. See the quotations.

Wiktionary

1. n. A light fixture.
2. n. A head or a skull.
3. n. A type of small fort or other fortification, especially as built to defend a pass or ford.
4. v. obsolete to impose a fine, a forfeit, or a mulct.
5. v. obsolete to shut within a sconce; to imprison.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A fortification, or work for defense; a fort.
2. n. A hut for protection and shelter; a stall.
3. n. A piece of armor for the head; headpiece; helmet.
4. n. colloq. Fig.: The head; the skull; also, brains; sense; discretion.
5. n. A poll tax; a mulct or fine.
6. n. A protection for a light; a lantern or cased support for a candle; hence, a fixed hanging or projecting candlestick.
7. n. Hence, the circular tube, with a brim, in a candlestick, into which the candle is inserted.
8. n. (Arch.) A squinch.
9. n. A fragment of a floe of ice.
10. n. Prov. Eng. A fixed seat or shelf.
11. v. obsolete To shut up in a sconce; to imprison; to insconce.
12. v. obsolete To mulct; to fine.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a shelter or screen providing protection from enemy fire or from the weather
2. n. a candle or flaming torch secured in a sconce
3. n. a decorative wall bracket for holding candles or other sources of light
4. n. a small fort or earthwork defending a ford, pass, or castle gate