Sconce

Quick meaning: Sconce is a noun meaning A fixture for a light, which holds it and provides a screen against wind or against a naked flame or lightbulb.

Meaning

A fixture for a light, which holds it and provides a screen against wind or against a naked flame or lightbulb.

More Meanings

1. A head or a skull.
2. A poll tax; a mulct or fine.
3. A type of small fort or other fortification, especially as built to defend a pass or ford.
4. (Oxford University slang) An act of sconcing; very similar to a fine at Cambridge University, though a sconce is the act of issuing a penalty rather than the penalty itself.
5. (Oxford University slang) During a meal or as part of a drinking game, to announce some (usually outrageous) deed such that anyone who has done it must drink; similar to I have never; commonly associated with crewdates; very similar to fining at Cambridge University.
6. (obsolete) To impose a fine, a forfeit, or a mulct.
7. (obsolete) A hut for protection and shelter; a stall.

Example Sentences

Golden sconces hang not on the walls.

[…]tapers put into lanterns or sconces of several-coloured, oiled paper, that the wind might not annoy them.

Why does he suffer this rude knave now, to knock him about the sconce with a dirty shovel, and will not tell him of his action of battery?

[…] roll the rider and his horse in the dust, or endeavour to drive their lance through the bars of the visor into the bull's eye of their friend's sconce, […]

Word Forms

• sconces
• sconcing
• sconced

Synonyms for sconce

Depending on context, synonyms include sconcing, redoubt.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include redoubt, lamp, fixture, practical, firescreen, luminaire.

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