Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun An ornamental border formed of two or more curved bands that interlace to repeat a circular design.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An ornamental pattern composed of intersecting curved lines, as the usual decoration of watch-cases; in architecture, an ornament in the form of two or more bands or ribbons interlacing or braided or twisted over each other so as to repeat the same figure in a continued series of spirals. The term is applied, but improperly, to a fret.
  • To decorate with intersecting curved lines, or with any pattern composed of curved lines.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Arch.) An ornament in the form of two or more bands or strings twisted over each other in a continued series, leaving circular openings which are filled with round ornaments.
  • noun In ornamental art, any pattern made by interlacing curved lines.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A fine engraving pattern of spirals, intertwining bands, etc.; or the tool used to create such work.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun an architectural decoration formed by two intersecting wavy bands

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French, tool used in making the ornamentation or French guillochis, guilloche.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French guilloche.

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Examples

Comments

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  • unlike the guillotine which has an intersecting sharpish edge that undoes forms when it it put to task

    June 16, 2009

  • Also seen in this nifty article.

    November 16, 2010

  • That is nifty. Thanks, c_b.

    November 21, 2010

  • This house was once classy, by gosh,

    The walls with proud details awash.

    Some long-ago master

    Of decorative plaster

    Had spun out a web of guilloche.

    July 19, 2017