wainscot

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“
'Tis true my slumbers are broken, my nights restless, and the cracking of the wainscot is as effectual in waking me as a thunder-clap could be.

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Definitions (13)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (3)

  1. noun A facing or paneling, usually of wood, applied to the walls of a room.
  2. noun The lower part of an interior wall when finished in a material different from that of the upper part.
  3. transitive verb To line or panel (a room or wall) with wainscoting.

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Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (2)

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Examples (50)

  • The carving of the oak on the panels of the wainscot was fine, and on and round the doors and windows it was beautiful and of rare merit. —  AHMM,November2007
  • Divine White is used on the ceiling and the border of the wainscot, while the walls under the chair rail are Latte.
  • In the narrow space between the ceiling and wainscot, the wall was covered with an old-fashioned paper, florid of design, and musty of odor. —  Flint His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes
  • Funerals have passed along through the stout-hearted knights upon the wainscot, and amid the laughing nymphs upon the arras. —  Imaginary Conversations and Poems A Selection
  • In places the wainscot was pierced by doors opening into sleeping places shut off from the rest of the hall on all sides for the heads of the family. —  The story of Burnt Njal From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga
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Etymologies (3)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English, from Middle Dutch waghenscot : perhaps waghen, wagen, wagon (from the quality of wood used for carriagework); see wagon + scot, partition; see skeud- in Indo-European roots.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (2)

  1. Early modern English also wainscott, waynskot, waynskote (also, as mere D., waghenscot); from Dutch wagenschot (= Low German wagenschot), the best kind of oak-wood, well grained and without knots (cf. Low German bokenschot, the best kind of beech-wood, without knots), from wagen, wagon, wain, chariot, carriage, + schot (= English shot), partition, wainscot. The orig. sense was prob. ‘wood used for a board or partition in a coach or wagon’; thence ‘boards for panel-work, paneling for walls, especially oak-wood for paneling.’
  2. Formerly also wenscot; from wainscot, n.
 

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/ˈweɪnskət/
by American Heritage

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