buttress, buttressing
(noun) a support usually of stone or brick; supports the wall of a building
buttress
(verb) make stronger or defensible; “buttress your thesis”
buttress
(verb) reinforce with a buttress; “Buttress the church”
Source: WordNet® 3.1
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.
(figurative) Anything that supports or strengthens.
• counterfort
• brace
buttress (third-person singular simple present buttresses, present participle buttressing, simple past and past participle buttressed)
To support something physically with, or as if with, a prop or buttress.
(figurative, by extension) To support something or someone by supplying evidence; to corroborate or substantiate.
• betrusts
Source: Wiktionary
But"tress, n. Etym: [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.]
1. (Arch.)
Definition: A projecting mass of masonry, used for resisting the thrust of an arch, or for ornament and symmetry.
Note: When an external projection is used merely to stiffen a wall, it is a pier.
2. Anything which supports or strengthens. "The ground pillar and buttress of the good old cause of nonconformity." South. Flying buttress. See Flying buttress.
But"tress, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Buttressed (p. pr. & vb. n. Buttressing.]
Definition: To support with a buttress; to prop; to brace firmly. To set it upright again, and to prop and buttress it up for duration. Burke.
Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition
6 November 2024
(adverb) in a searching manner; “‘Are you really happy with him,’ asked her mother, gazing at Vera searchingly”
Coffee dates back to the 9th century. Goat herders in Ethiopia noticed their goats seem to be “dancing” after eating berries from a particular shrub. They reported it to the local monastery, and a monk made a drink out of it. The monk found out he felt energized and kept him awake at night. That’s how the first coffee drink was born.
