Buttress
Pronunciation
- UK IPA: /ˈbʌtɹəs/
- US IPA: /ˈbʌtrɪs/
Origin
From Old French bouterés, nominative singular of bouteret, from Frankish *botan, from Proto-Germanic *bautaną ("to push"). Ultimately cognate with beat.
Full definition of buttress
Noun
buttress
(plural buttresses)- (architecture) A brick or stone structure built against another structure to support it.
- Anything that serves to support something; a prop.
- (botany) A buttress-root.
- (climbing) A feature jutting prominently out from a mountain or rock; a crag, a bluff.Crowell Buttresses, , , , Image:Milestone buttress.JPG|thumb|right|Milestone Buttress on
- 2005, Will Cook, Until Darkness Disappears, page 54:All that day they rode into broken land. The prairie with its grass and rolling hills was behind them, and they entered a sparse, dry, rocky country, full of draws and short cañons and ominous buttresses.
- 2010, Tony Howard, Treks and Climbs in Wadi Rum, Jordan, ISBN-13: 9781852842543, page 84:Two short pitches up a chimney-crack are followed by a traverse right to the centre of the buttress.
- (figurative) Anything that supports or strengthens.
- Souththe ground pillar and buttress of the good old cause of nonconformity
Derived terms
Synonyms
Verb
- To support something physically with, or as if with, a prop or buttress.
- To support something or someone by supplying evidence; to corroborate or substantiate.