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Anything which supports or strengthens. "The ground pillar and buttress of the good old cause of nonconformity." South. Flying buttress. See Flying buttress.

A flying buttress. Gwilt.

walls, roof, or other part of a building, or of the whole building, as marked off by the buttresses, vaulting, mullions of a window, etc.; one of the main divisions of any structure, as the part of a bridge between two piers.

A buttress of an arch; the supporter, or that part which joins it to the upright pier.

A kind of buttress of masonry to strengthen a revetment wall.

A buttress on the left-hand wall of a fives court as the game is played at Eton College, England.

Any additional or auxiliary mass of masonry used to stiffen a wall. See Buttress.

architectural member, upright, and generally ending in a small spire, -- used to finish a buttress, to constitute a part in a proportion, as where pinnacles flank a gable or spire, and the like. Pinnacles may be considered primarily as added weight, where it is necessary to resist the thrust of an arch, etc. Some renow…

A stone at the foot of the slope of a gable, the offset of a buttress, or the like, cut with a sloping surface and with a check to receive the coping stones and retain them in place.

The short wooden buttress of a post.