buttress
UK /ˈbʌtɹəs/ · US /ˈbʌtɹɪs/ noun, verb
Forms buttresses buttressing buttressed buttrice
- noun (architecture) A brick, concrete or stone structure built against another structure to support it.
- noun (by extension) Anything that serves to support something; a prop.
- noun (botany) A buttress root.
- noun (climbing) A feature jutting prominently out from a mountain or rock.
- noun (figurative) Anything that supports or strengthens.
- verb To support something physically with, or as if with, a prop or buttress.
- verb (figurative, by extension) To support something or someone by supplying evidence.
Synonyms
counterfort brace crag bluff corroborate substantiate buttressing
Etymology
From Old French ars bouterez (noun, literally “supporting arcs”), from bouterez (adjective), oblique plural of bouteret (rare in the singular), from Frankish *bôtan, from Proto-Germanic *bautaną (“to push”). Ultimately cognate with beat.
Webster’s 1913
- noun A projecting mass of masonry, used for resisting the thrust of an arch, or for ornament and symmetry.
- noun Anything which supports or strengthens. "The ground pillar and buttress of the good old cause of nonconformity." South. Flying buttress. See Flying buttress.
- verb To support with a buttress; to prop; to brace firmly.
Etymology [OE. butrasse, boterace, fr. F. bouter to push; cf. OF. bouteret (nom. sing. and acc. pl. bouterez) buttress. See Butt an end, and cf. Butteris.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “buttress”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details