sconce
NounOpen English WordNet
Noun (4)
- a shelter or screen providing protection from enemy fire or from the weatherType of shelter
- a small fort or earthwork defending a ford, pass, or castle gateType of earthwork, fortress
- a candle or flaming torch secured in a sconceType of light, light source
- a decorative wall bracket for holding candles or other sources of lightType of bracket, wall bracket
What does it mean? Question 1 of today’s quiz
Webster's Dictionary (1913)
Origin: D. schans, OD. schantse, perhaps from OF. esconse a hiding place, akin to esconser to hide, L. absconsus, past participle of abscondere. See Abscond, and cf. Ensconce, Sconce a candlestick.
1. A fortification, or work for defense; a fort.
No sconce or fortress of his raising was ever known either to have been forced, or yielded up, or quitted.— John Milton
2. A hut for protection and shelter; a stall.
One that... must raise a sconce by the highway and sell switches.— Francis, & Fletcher, John. Beaumont
3. A piece of armor for the head; headpiece; helmet.
I must get a sconce for my head.— William Shakespeare
4. Fig.: The head; the skull; also, brains; sense; discretion. colloquial
To knock him about the sconce with a dirty shovel.— William Shakespeare
5. A poll tax; a mulct or fine. Dr. Samuel Johnson
6. A protection for a light; a lantern or cased support for a candle; hence, a fixed hanging or projecting candlestick.
Tapers put into lanterns or sconces of several-colored, oiled paper, that the wind might not annoy them.— John Evelyn
Golden sconces hang not on the walls.— John Dryden
7. Hence, the circular tube, with a brim, in a candlestick, into which the candle is inserted.
8. Architecture A squinch.
9. A fragment of a floe of ice. Elisha Kent Kane
10. A fixed seat or shelf. dialect (England)
1. To shut up in a sconce; to imprison; to insconce. obsolete
Immure him, sconce him, barricade him in 't.— John Marston
2. To mulct; to fine. obsolete John Milton
Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913), from GCIDE 0.54