ARCHITECTURE TOPICAL GLOSSARY
Abacus
Aisle
Altarpiece
Ambulatory
Apse
Arcade / Arcading
Arch
Archivolt
Ashlar
Aumbry
Bailey
Barbican
Barrel roof
Bartizan
Bastion
Batter
Battlements
Bay
Berm
Bivalate
Bond
Bratice
Buttress
Chevet
Chevron
Choir / quire
Clerestory
Cloister
Cob
Column
Compound pier
Corbel
Cornice
Counterscarp
Course
Crenelated
Crocket
Crossing
Crossing square
Crosswall
Cruciform
Crypt
Curtain
Diaphram arch
Donjon
Dormer
Drawbridge
Dressing
Drum-tower
Drystone
Embattled
Embrasure
Façade
Fenestration
Flute (or fluting)
Flying buttress
Foliated
Footings
Forebuilding
Fosse
Freestone
Fresco
Gable
Gallery
Garderobe
Gargoyle
Gothic
Great chamber
Groin
Grotesque
Hall
Haunch
Hillfort
Hood
Impost
Jamb
Joist
Keep
Keystone
Lancet
Lierne
Lintel
Loop
Louvre
Lunette
Machicolation
Merlon
Meutrieres
Molding
Motte
Motte-and-Bailey
Mullion
Narthex
Nave
Newel
Ogee
Oolite
Oratory
Oriel
Palisade
Parados
Parapet
Pediment
Perpendicular
Pier
Pilaster
Pillar
Pinnacle
Piscina
Pitch
Pitching
Plinth
Portcullis
Postern
Predella
Quadrangle
Rampart
Refectory
Retable
Revetment
Rib
Ring-work
Romanesque
Rose window
Rustication
Scarp
Scriptorium
Shell-keep
Soffit
Solar
Thrust
Tracery
Transept
Trumeau
Turret
Vault
barrel or tunnel vault
cross vault
cross-barrel vault
fan vault
quadrant vault
ribbed vault
sexpartile vault
Voussoir
Wall-stair
Wall-walk
Wing-wall
Yett
http://tudorhistory.org/glossaries/architecture/
Abacus
Flat portion on top of a capital.
Aisle
The portion of a church flanking the nave and separated from it by a row of columns or piers. In general, the space between the arcade and an outer wall.
Altarpiece
A panel, painted or sculptured, situated above and behind an altar.
Ambulatory
A covered walkway, outdoors (as in a cloister) or indoors; especially the passageway around the apse and the choir (quire) of a church.
Apse
A recess, usually singular and semi-circular, at the east end of a Christian church.
Arcade
A series of arches supported by piers or columns.
Arcading
An uninterrupted series of arcades
Arch
A cuved structural member that spans an opening and is generally composed of wedge-shaped blocks that transmit the downward pressure out laterally.
Archivolt
One of a series of concentric moldings on a Romanesque or a Golthic arch.
Ashlar
Worked stone with flat surface, usually of regular shape and square edges.
Aumbry
A recess to hold sacred vessels, often found in castle chapels.
Bailey
Castle courtyard and surrounding buildings.
Barbican
Outwork defending the entrance to castle.
Barrel roof
Like a covered wagon, or inverted ship; barrel vault is a plain vault of uniform cross-section.
Bartizan
Overhanging battlemented corner turret, corbelled out; common in Scotland (and France).
Bastion
Batter
An inclined face of wall; hence battered.
Battlements
A parapet with indentations or embrasures, with raised portions (merlons) between; also called crenellations.
Bay
A subdivision of the interior space of a building. In Romanesque and Gothic churches, the transverse arches and piers of the arcade divide the building into bays.
Berm
A level area separating ditch from bank.
Bivalate
A hillfort defended by two concentric ditches.
Bond
An arrangement of bricks in courses.
Bratice
A timber tower, or projecting wooden gallery.
Buttress
An exterior masonry structure that opposes the lateral thrust of an arch or a vault and adds extra support.
Chevet
The eastern end of a Gothic church, including choir (quire), ambulatory, and radiating chapels.
Chevron
Zig-zag moulding (twelfth century).
Choir (also quire)
The space reserved for the clergy in the church, usually east of the transept but, in some instances, extending into the nave.
Clerestory
The fenestrated part of a building that rises above the roofs of the other parts.
Cloister
A court, usually with covered walks or ambulatories along its sides.
Cob
Unburnt clay mixed with straw.
Column
A vertical weight-carrying architectural member, cuircular in cross section and consisting of a base (sometimes omitted) a shaft, and a capital.
Compound pier
A pier composed of a group or cluster of members, especially characteristic of Gothic architecture.
Corbel
A projecting wall member used as a support for some element of the superstructure. Also, courses of stone or brick in which each course projects beyond the one beneath it. Two such structures, meeting at the topmost course, creates an arch.
Cornice
Decorative projection along top of wall.
Counterscarp
Course
Level layer of stones or bricks.
Crenelated
Notched or indented, usually with respect to tops of walls, as in battlements.
Crocket
A projecting, foliate ornament of a capital, pinnacle, gable or buttress.
Crossing
The space in a cruciform church formed by the intersection of the nave and the transept.
Crossing square
The area in a church that is formed by the intersection (crossing) of a nave and transept of equal width.
Crosswall
An interior dividing wall of a castle.
Cruciform
Cross-shaped.
Curtain
A connecting wall ‘hung’ between towers of a castle.
Crypt
A vaulted space under part of a building, wholly or partly underground; in Medieval churches, normally the portion under an apse or a chevet.
Diaphram arch
A transverse, wall-bearing arch that divides a vault or a ceiling into compartments, providing a kind of firebreak.
Donjon
The principal tower of a castle; keep.
Dormer
A window placed vertically in sloping roof.
Drawbridge
A movable bridge; originally moved horizontally like a gangway.
Dressing
Carved stonework around openings.
Drum-tower
A large, circular tower, usually low and squat.
Drystone
Unmortared masonry.
Embattled
Battlemented.
Embrasure
A splayed opening in a wall that enframes a doorway or a window.
Façade
Usually, the front of a building; also the other sides when they are emphasized architecturally.
Fenestration
The arrangement of the windows of a building.
Vertical channeling, roughly semicircular in cross section and used pricipally on columns and pillasters.
Flying buttress
Typically consists of an inclined member carried on an arch or a series of arches and a solid buttress to which it transmits lateral thrust.
Footings
Forebuilding
A block in front of a keep, to form lobby or landing.
Fosse
Ditch.
Freestone
High-quality sandstone or limestone.
Fresco
A painting on wet plaster wall.
Gable
Wall covering end of roof-ridge.
Gallery
The second story of an ambulatory or aisle. Also a long passage or room.
Garderobe
Latrine; privy.
Gargoyle
In archiecture, a waterspout, often in the form of a grotesque.
An architectural style prevalent in western Europe from the 12th through the 15th century and characterized by pointed arches, rib vaulting, and flying buttresses.
Great chamber
The lord’s solar, or bed-sitting room.
Groined
A roof with sharp edges at intersection of cross-vaults.
Grotesque
In art, a kind of ornament used in antiquity consisting of representations of medallions, sphinxes, foliage, and imaginary creatures.
Hall
The principal room or building in complex.
Haunch
The part of an arch ath which the lateral thrust is strongest.
Hillfort
Bronze or Iron Age earthwork of ditches and banks.
Hood
An arched covering; when used to throw off rainwater, called hood-mould.
Impost
A wall bracket to support an arch.
Jamb
A side of arch, door or window.
Joist
A timber stretched from wall-to-wall to support floorboards.
Keep
Main tower.
Keystone
The central, uppermost part of an arch.
Lancet
A long, narrow window with pointed head.
Lierne
A short rib that runs from the one main rib of a vault to another.
Lintel
A beam of any material used to span an opening.
Loop
Louvre
An opening in roof (often with lantern over) to allow smoke to escape from central hearth.
Lunette
A semicircular opening (with the flat side down) in a wall over a door, a niche, or a window.
Machicolation
An opening in the floor of an overhanging gallery through which the defenders of a castle dropped stones and boiling liquids on attackers.
Merlon
A solid part of embattled parapet.
Meutrieres
Murder holes.
Molding
In architecture, a continuous, narrow surface (projecting or recesses, plain or ornamented) designed to break up a surface, to accent, or to decorate.
Motte
An artificial earth-mound for keeps of eleventh- and twelfth-century castles.
Motte-and-Bailey
An earth-mound with wood or stone keep, surrounded by ditched and palisade enclosure (or courtyard).
Mullion
A vertical member that divides a window or that separates one window from another.
Narthex
A porch or vestibule of a church, generally colonnaded or arcaded and preceding the nave.
Nave
The part of a church between the chief entrance and the choir (quire), demarcated from aisles by piers or columns.
Newel
The centre-post of circular staircase.
Ogee
A pointed arch with double curved sides, upper arcs convex, lower concave
Oolite
Granular limestone.
Oratory
Palisade
A timber defensive screen or fence.
Parados
A low wall on inner side of main wall.
Parapet
A low wall on outer side of main wall.
Pediment
A low-pitched gable over porticos, doors, windows, etc.
Of or relating to a style of English Gothic architecture of the 14th and 15th centuries, characterized by emphasis of the vertical element.
Pier
A vertical, unattached masonry support.
Pilaster
A flat, rectangular, vertical member projecting from a wall of which it forms a part. Usually has a base and a captial and is often fluted.
Pillar
Usually a weight-carrying member, such as a pier or a column; sometimes an isolated, freestanding structure used for commemorative purposes.
Pinnacle
A tower, primarily ornamental, that also functions in Gothic architecture to give additional weight to a buttress or a pier.
Piscina
A handbasin, usually set in or against wall, with drain.
Pitch
Roof slope.
Pitching
Rough cobbling.
Plinth
Portcullis
A grating dropped vertically from grooves to block passage or gate in castle; of wood, metal or a combination of the two.
Postern
Predella
The narrow ledge on which an altarpiece rests on an altar.
Quadrangle
Inner courtyard.
Rampart
A defensive stone or earth wall surrounding castle or town.
Refectory
Retable
An architectural screen or wall above and behind an altar, usually containing painting, sculpture, carving or other decorations.
Revetment
Retaining wall.
Rib
A relatively slender, molded masonry arch that projects from a surface. In Gothic architecture, the ribs form the framework of the vaulting.
Ring-work
Circular earthwork of bank and ditch.
A style of European architecture containing both Roman and Byzantine elements, prevalent especially in the 11th and 12th centuries and characterized by thick walls, barrel vaults, and relatively unrefined ornamentation.
Rose window
The large, circular window with tracery and stained glass frequently used in the façades of Gothic churches.
Rustication
Worked ashlar stone, with faces left rough.
Scarp
The slope on inner side of ditch.
Scriptorium
A Medieval writing room in which scrolls were also housed.
Shell-keep
The circular or oval wall surrounding inner portion of castle.
Soffit
The underside of an arch or opening.
Solar
Upper living room of medieval house or castle; often over the hall.
Thrust
The outward force exerted by an arch or a vault that must be counterbalanced by buttresses.
Tracery
Branching, ornamental stonework, generally in a window, where it supports the glass; particularly characteristic of Gothic architecture.
Transept
The part of a cruciform church with an axis that crosses the main axis at right angles.
Trumeau
A pillar in the center of a Romanesque or Gothic portal.
Turret
A small, often ornamental tower projecting from a building, usually at a corner.
A masonry roof or ceiling constructed on the arch principle.
A barrel or tunnel vault, semicylindrical in cross section, is in effect a deep arch or an uninterrupted series of arches, one behind the other, over an oblong space.
In a cross-barrel vault, the main barrel (tunnel) vault is intersected at right angles with other barrel (tunnel) vaults at regular intervals.
A quadrant vault is a half-barrel (tunnel) vault.
A sexpartile vault is a rib vault with six panels.
A fan vault is a development of lierne vaulting characteristic of English Perpendicular Gothic, in which radiating ribs form a fan-like pattern.
A cross vault (or groin) is formed at the point at which two barrel (tunnel) vaults intersect at right angles.
In a ribbed vault, there is a framework of ribs or arches under the intersections of the vaulting sections.
Voussoir
A wedged-shaped stone in arch.
Wall-stair
A staircase built into thickness of wall.
Wall-walk
Wing-wall
A wall down slope of motte to protect stairway.
Yett
Sources Cited
Tudor History Architecture Glossary, http://www.tudorhistory.org/glossaries/…/index.html. Last accessed December 13, 2009.
Key Stats
At time of upload on August 11, 2004:
- 138 duplicative terms of those already existing in the Architectural Dictionary
- 0 original terms
- 138 total terms in source
- 0% original terms in source
- 16 sources in dictionary
- 752 unique terms in dictionary
- 2,350 total terms all sources in dictionary
- 32% unique terms in dictionary