terrace

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A porch or walkway bordered by colonnades.
2. n. A platform extending outdoors from a floor of a house or apartment building.
3. n. An open, often paved area adjacent to a house serving as an outdoor living space; a patio.
4. n. A raised bank of earth having vertical or sloping sides and a flat top: turning a hillside into a series of ascending terraces for farming.
5. n. A flat, narrow stretch of ground, often having a steep slope facing a river, lake, or sea.
6. n. A row of buildings erected on raised ground or on a sloping site.
7. n. A section of row houses.
8. n. A residential street, especially on a slope or hill.
9. n. A narrow strip of landscaped earth in the middle of a street.
10. n. Chiefly Upper Northern & Midwestern U.S. See parking. See Regional Note at parking.
11. v. To provide (a house, for example) with a terrace or terraces.
12. v. To form (a hillside or sloping lawn, for example) into terraces.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A raised level faced with masonry or turf; an elevated flat space: as, a garden terrace; also, a natural formation of the ground resembling such a terrace.
2. n. In geology, a strip of land, nearly level, extending along the margin of the sea, a lake. or a river, and terminating on the side toward the water in a more or less abrupt descent: a beach; a raised beach. Also called in Scotland a carse, and in parts of the United States where Spanish was formerly spoken a mesa, or meseta. Terraces are seen in many parts of the world, and vary greatly in width, height, and longitudinal extent, as well as in the mode of their formation. Marine terraces, or raised beaches, have usually been caused by the elevation of the land, the preëxisting beach having been thus lifted above the action of the water, and a new one formed at a lower level. Raised beaches, terraces, or ancient sea-margins of this kind form conspicuous features in the coast topography of various regions, as of Scandinavia, Scotland, and the Pacific coast of North and South America. Some river- and lake-terraces may have been formed by the upheaval of the region where they occur; but a far more important and general cause of their existence is the diminution of the amount of water flowing in the rivers or standing in the lakes—a phenomenon of which there are abundant proofs all over the world, and the beginning of which reaches back certainly into Tertiary times, but how much further is not definitely known, since the geological records of such change of climate could not be preserved for an indefinite period, and very little is known in regard to the position of rivers, or bodies of water distinctly separated from the ocean, at any remote geological period. Rarely called a bench.
3. n. A street or row of houses running along the face or top of a slope: often applied arbitrarily, as a fancy name, to ordinary streets or ranges of houses.
4. n. The flat roof of a house, as of Oriental and Spanish houses.
5. n. A balcony, or open gallery.
6. n. In marble-working, a defective spot in marble, which, after being cleaned out, is filled with some artificial preparation. Also terrasse.
7. To form into a terrace; furnish with a terrace.
8. n. A variety of mortar used for pargeting and the like, and for lining kilns for pottery.

Wiktionary

1. n. A platform that extends outwards from a building.
2. n. A raised, flat-topped bank of earth with sloping sides, especially one of a series for farming or leisure; a similar natural area of ground, often next to a river.
3. n. A row of residential houses with no gaps between them; a group of row houses.
4. n. in the plural, chiefly UK The standing area at a football ground.
5. n. The roof of a building, especially if accessible to the residents. Often used for drying laundry, sun-drying foodstuffs, exercise, or sleeping outdoors in hot weather.
6. v. To provide something with a terrace.
7. v. To form something into a terrace.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A raised level space, shelf, or platform of earth, supported on one or more sides by a wall, a bank of tuft, or the like, whether designed for use or pleasure.
2. n. A balcony, especially a large and uncovered one.
3. n. A flat roof to a house.
4. n. A street, or a row of houses, on a bank or the side of a hill; hence, any street, or row of houses.
5. n. (Geol.) A level plain, usually with a steep front, bordering a river, a lake, or sometimes the sea.
6. v. To form into a terrace or terraces; to furnish with a terrace or terraces, .

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a level shelf of land interrupting a declivity (with steep slopes above and below)
2. v. make into terraces as for cultivation
3. n. usually paved outdoor area adjoining a residence
4. v. provide (a house) with a terrace
5. n. a row of houses built in a similar style and having common dividing walls (or the street on which they face)