Buttress

Quick meaning: Buttress is a noun meaning (architecture) A brick, concrete or stone structure built against another structure to support it.

Meaning

(architecture) A brick, concrete or stone structure built against another structure to support it.

More Meanings

1. (by extension) Anything that serves to support something; a prop.
2. (botany) A buttress root.
3. (climbing) A feature jutting prominently out from a mountain or rock.
4. (figurative) Anything that supports or strengthens.
5. To support something physically with, or as if with, a prop or buttress.
6. (figurative, by extension) To support something or someone by supplying evidence.

Example Sentences

Crowell Buttresses, Dismal Buttress

the grand pillar and buttress of the good old cause of nonconformity

Two short pitches up a chimney-crack are followed by a traverse right to the centre of the buttress.

It was decided, therefore, to build eight concrete buttresses from the new strengthening work to safeguard the general stability of the wall along the length where the greatest movement had taken place.

Word Forms

• buttresses
• buttrice
• buttressing
• buttressed

Synonyms for buttress

Depending on context, synonyms include counterfort, brace, crag, bluff, corroborate, substantiate.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include pillar, entrench, underpin, bolster, backstop, build.

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