Glossary of Architectural and Wood Carving Terms

  • The slab that forms the top of the capital.

  • A masonry mass that takes the weight and thrust of an arch, vault, or truss.

  • A Mediterranean plant (Acanthus mollis and Acanthus spinous) whose deeply serrated leaf was stylized by the Greeks and the Romans to become one of the principal ornaments of classical architecture. It identifies a Corinthian capital.

  • A small house or tempted frame.

  • A scroll-shaped bracket, customarily found in pairs, that supports a cornice over a door or a window.

  • An ornament based on the honeysuckle or palm leaf. (Anthemia, pl.)

  • Appliques are decorative ornament that is usually fretted out and applied to a background.

  • An intricate decorative pattern joining plant, animal, and sometimes human forms.

  • A curved construction used to span an opening or recess. Arch-curved construction used to span an opening.

  • The bottom third of the entablature. the part resting on the column or pilaster and supporting a frieze. It is often divided into fascia.

  • A small half round to be seen on a capital. Also a moulded strip applied to one side of a door leaf where the two leaves meet. It is designed to project over the adjoining leaf when the door is closed.

  • A story built above the cornice of a building.

  • An upright support in a variety of turned shapes, customarily swelling toward the base. When one shape is inverted and superimposed on its model, it is called a double baluster. Used in a series and supporting a rail, it forms part of a balustrade.

  • A ceiling or roof construction as an extended arch over a space. Customarily semi-cylindrical in shape.

  • The bottom part, made up of mouldings, of the column and the pilaster, or of any architectural of decorative sign.

  • A flat projection at the floor level of an interior wall.

  • An incline given the face of a wall.

  • A stylized leaf and berry of the bay tree, by laurel or sweet bay (Laurus nobilis) often imbricated as in a wreath, in a swag, or in the enrichment of a torus.

  • A small half round.

  • A Semi round Torus profiled moulding with oblong sausage shapes interspersed with one or more wheel like shapes.

  • Item description

  • The moulding on which a cornice rests.

  • The principal floor, customarily above the ground floor, reserved for reception rooms.

  • A horizontal band of masonry extending across the facade of a building.

  • A coin-shaped ornament.

  • A bracket is a support for a projection, such as a cornice, usually scroll-shaped, as in a console bracket.

  • An ox skull. An ornamental device often used with garlands, festoons, and ribbons.

  • A round or ovoid device with a convex surface, often elaborately framed. Also found in jewelry.

  • A sunken panel in a vault or a dome.

  • A capital is the crowning member of a column or a pilaster.

  • A shield or ovoid form often bearing inscriptions and devices in relief, frequently set in an elaborate scroll frame and bordered with ornament.

  • A concave molding with the profile of a quarter round or close to it.

  • A series of circles joined by paired hyphens, often with rosettes in the circles. When bordered by acanthus, it is known as a foliated chain band.

  • A sunken panel in a ceiling, vault, or the underside of an arch. The great example of a coffering is to be found in the Pantheon in Rome.

  • A decorative bracket in the form of a scroll supporting a balcony, a table, or an overhanging wall.

  • A round, vertical support, consisting of a base, shaft, and capital, usually upholding an entablature.

  • The projecting top section of an entablature.

  • Also known as a horn of plenty, it is a goat's horn overflowing with fruit, grain, ears of corn, and similar items.

  • The fiat part of a cornice between the cymatium above and the bed mold below.

  • A horizontal layer of masonry.

  • A concave surface connecting a ceiling and a wall.

  • Also GREEK EAR. A lateral extension of the architrave moldings at the top of a door or window frame.

  • A molding with an S-shaped curve, concave over convex.

  • The uppermost molding of a cornice, usually in the shape of a cyma recta.

  • A continuous wall pedestal or wainscot consisting of a base or baseboard, a die, and an upper rail or cap molding.

  • A small projecting block used dentil band or course, forming part of a cornice. Dentils resemble teeth. Denticulated or Denticular means enriched with dentils.

  • A convex roof or ceiling, hemispherical, semiovoidal, or saucer-shaped, built over a square, octagonal, or circular space.

  • One of the five orders of columns, with a simple capital consisting mainly of an acabacus and echinus.

  • A familiar convex molding, an ovolo in profile enriched with eggs and arrowhead.

  • The upper part of an order, supported by columns. Made up of three major horizontal members: architrave, frieze, and cornice.

  • An almost imperceptible swelling added to the tapering of the column shaft. It is a necessary refinement to correct the optical illusion of concavity results if the column is straight.

  • The outside surfaces of an arch.

  • The plain horizontal band or bands, often combined with moldings, that make up the architrave, the lowest, third part of the entablature.

  • A garland made of fruits, flowers, leaves, or husks and hanging in a curve. Alternative term: SWAG.

  • A raised, narrow fiat band between the flutes of a column. Also a raised or sunken band when combined with other elements.

  • A small flower-shaped ornament usually found on the abacus of a Corinthian column.

  • A concave groove or channel running vertically on a column or pilaster shaft Also found in enriched moldings. Collectively called fluting.

  • A geometrical meandering pattern of horizontal and vertical straight lines making a band. Also called GREEK KEY.

  • The Frieze is a middle horizontal member of an entablature above the architrave and below the comic.

  • A convex rounded ornament, always in a set; for that reason, most often called gadroons. The gadroon is round at the upper end and tapering to a point at the other.

  • An intertwining of fruits, leaves, flowers, or husks.

  • The ridge at the intersection of two vaults. A groined vault.

  • An ornament composed of continuous interlaced curving lines. When there are two linked patterns, it is known as a double guilloche.

  • A series of cone-shaped or cylindrical pendants on the underside of a triglyph.

  • The volutes or scrolls of a Corinthian capital.

  • A pattern of overlapping leaves or scales, usually of bay leaves, oak leaves, or bezants. Imbrication: a band of the same.

  • A cornicelike bracket from which an arch springs. Also called IMPOST BLOCK.

  • One of the five orders of columns, recognized by its capital of volutes or helixes.

  • A door made to look indistinguishable from the wall in which it stands.

  • A keystone is the wedged top stone of an arch.

  • A repetitive band made up of a stylized leaf and a dart. Sometimes called WATER LEAF, a term invented by an eighteeth-century archaeologist.

  • A horizontal member spanning an opening in a door or a window.

  • A semicircular wall inside an arch. Often applied to a painting that fills the same.

  • From the Ancient Greek word Meandros ia a continuing running undulating pattern - for example the Key Pattern.

  • A square panel between triglyphs on a Doric frieze. Often decorated with a relief.

  • A small bracket used in rows under the corona of a cornice and extending from the bed mold. It frequently takes the shape of an ornamental double volute.

  • The shaft of a column consisting of a single block of stone. Also MONOLITHIC.

  • Plain or decorated profiles either rectangular or curved and either above or below the surface. Their purpose is to provide a transition or to produce light and shade.

  • Also known as COLLARINO. A wide surface at the top of a Tuscan, Doric, or Ionic column.

  • A recess in a wall, usually with a semidome, designed as a place for a statue.

  • An order consists of a column with base (except in the Greek Doric), shaft, and capital and its entablature. Each order has its own formalized ornament. The orders are the basis of architectural design the classical tradition, providing lessons in proportion, scale and the uses of ornament. The five orders are Tuscan, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian and Composite.

  • A convex molding, either elliptical or quarterround.

  • A decorative form of palm leaf radiating into a fan shape with outward turning leaves.

    (anthemion is similar but the leaves turn, in replicating the honeysuckle).

  • An ornament, usually in the form of a rosette, to be found in coffers.

  • A small molding resembling a string of pearls. Also known as BEADS.

  • A base for a column, pilaster, or statue. Also, a post in a balustrade.

  • A triangular gable with a wall, called a tympanum, framed by a cornice. Originating with the Greek temple, it is found today crowning an entablature, a door, or a window. When it has round cornice instead of two sides of a triangle, round or segmental pediment.

  • A triangular curved surface between two arches and beneath a dome.

  • The principle floor a renaissance residence containing the main reception rooms and bedrooms.

  • A heavy vertical mass of masonry used for support with none of the details of a column.

  • A vertical rectangular projection from a wall, treated like a column with base, shaft, and capital.

  • An additional base beneath the base of a column, or pilaster, or baluster. A plinth course is a continuous plinth serving as base to a number of columns, pilasters, or balusters (balustrade).

  • An upright supporting member.

  • Pillow-shaped, as in the curved profile of a frieze, such as in a pulvinated frieze. It is also found in rustication, where the stones are given a pillow shape.

  • Sloping cornice of the two sides of a pediment.

  • A bead or beaded molding, i.e., a small half round. When used in clusters, it is called REEDING.

  • The section of the wall framing a window or a door, customarily when the wall is thick.

  • An ornament in imitation of a cloth ribbon.

  • A symmetrical swirling ornament of leaves, customarily those of the acanthus.

  • A rosette is a floral motive, usually round. Paterae in coffers are most often in the shape of rosettes.

  • The prow of a Greek or Roman warship used as a ram in battle. Stone imitations of them are part of the grammar or classical ornament and are customarily found in columns. Captured rostra were placed at the foot of the speaker's podium in the Roman Forum; for that reason such a podium is called a rostrum.

  • The same for cut stone in a wall that is channeled with grooves. The purpose is to convey an impression of solidity and strength and to give visual relief to the wall surface.

  • A low concave ceiling, with the shape of an inverted saucer.

  • A bracket, secured to a wall, with a candlestick or several candlesticks, or imitations of same, or with arms holding lights. Also known as APPLIQUE.

  • A spiral found in the form of volutes of a capital or in the frame of a cartouche.

  • A frame adorned with scrolls that looks as if it were made of thick boiled leather.

  • The portion of a circle, less than a semicircle defining the shape of an arch or vault.

  • The trunk or the longest part of a column between the base and the capital.

  • Vaulting used solely as decoration serving no structural purpose. It is made of plaster bonded by lath and held in place by struts attached to the beams. The Romans were the first to adopt the vault as a decorative device. With its value as an ornament, it evolved from being structural to being chiefly decorative.

  • The underside of an arch, a beam, or any spanning members.

  • The triangular space bounded by the curve of an arch, a horizontal line through its top, and a vertical line rising from the impost or springing of the arch.

  • A sloped surface, usually in the arch of a door or window where one side is larger than the other.

  • A fillet found on the horizontal and raking cornices of a pediment, termed split because it divides at an angle where the two cornices meet.

  • The science and art of stonecutting. Also STEREOTOMIC.

  • Where the flutes or channels of a column or pilaster, or any grooves, have been filled with rods or rods topped by acanthus.

  • A form of ornamentation consisting of folding and interlacing bands.

  • A horizontal band across a facade. It can be flush or projecting, and given a variety of surfaces.

  • Generally two point suspending drapery - a festoon is with flowers, fruit - or a garland.

  • The fillet at the top of a Doric architrave.

  • Also known as a quirked molding. In profile, it is part round and part elliptical.

  • A projecting block with three channels forming part of a Doric frieze.

  • An arched ceiling. Prior to the coming of the steel beam, the vault of brick or stone was adopted instead of wood beams to cover a space. In the last century, a space would often be covered by several vaults supported on cast-iron beams. The illustration above shows the vault of brick and cast iron as found in the Library's basement floor, concealed by a flat plaster ceiling.

  • A method of covering space with masonry following the principle of the arch. Its great advantage prior to the use of steel and concrete was its being fire retardant and long-lasting. The illustration below shows an example of shell vaulting, which often replaced vaults of masonry. In this instance, a stucco shell is suspended by struts from beams as found on the second floor of the Jefferson Building.

  • An anteroom, entrance hall, or foyer.

  • A spiral scroll as on an Ionic, Corinthian, or Composite capital, or any special ornament. Also known as HELIX.

NEXT