buttress

«buttress» in Mova's school dictionary: a thick wall or support of stone or brick built against a… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 1 sentence of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun (a buttress, buttresses); verb (buttress, buttresses, buttressed, buttressing)

meaning for a pupil

1) A buttress is a thick wall or support of stone or brick built against a wall to hold it up and stop it falling outwards. tree →

2) A flying buttress is an arch that reaches from a separate pillar to support a tall wall, as in Gothic cathedrals. tree →

3) To buttress something is to support or strengthen it, often an argument or idea. tree →

4) A buttress root is a wide, flat root that holds up a tall rainforest tree. tree →

sense in the lessons

In history and design lessons buttresses let medieval builders make cathedrals with tall, thin walls and big stained-glass windows (Notre-Dame, Westminster Abbey). In science lessons rainforest trees have buttress roots. In English, «buttress your argument with evidence» means support it. Phrases: flying buttress, buttress roots, buttress an argument.

examples

• The old church wall is held up by stone buttresses. tree →
• Flying buttresses support the walls of Notre-Dame in Paris. tree →
• Rainforest trees have huge buttress roots. tree →
• Buttresses let builders make tall walls with big windows. tree →
• She buttressed her argument with lots of facts. tree →
• The castle wall had a buttress at each corner. tree →
• We crawled between the buttress roots of a giant fig tree. tree →

note

Plural buttresses. The verb is formal; in everyday talk say «support». Do not confuse with «butter».

In the corpora

• Buttress roots spread out like walls around many rainforest trees and hold the tall tree up in thin soil.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «buttress» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.