Search the Dictionary

The act of constructing vaults; a vaulted construction.

Vaulting formed by the intersection of two or more simple vaults.

One who practices rope dancing, high vaulting, or other daring gymnastic feats.

Feats of the acrobat; daring gymnastic feats; high vaulting.

, 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 vaulting or arching over. [R.]

A crown or circlet suspended from the roof or vaulting of churches, to hold tapers lighted on solemn occasions. It is sometimes formed of double or triple circlets, arranged pyramidically. Called also corona lucis. Fairholt.

a running high-jump, a 400-meter run, throwing the discus, a 100-meter hurdle race, pole vaulting, throwing the javelin, and a 1500-meter run.

See Scallop, n., 1. -- Fan tracery (Arch.), the decorative tracery on the surface of fan vaulting. -- Fan vaulting (Arch.), an elaborate system of vaulting, in which the ribs diverge somewhat like the rays of a fan, as in Henry VII.'s chapel in Westminster Abbey. It is peculiar to English Gothic. -- Fan wheel, the w…

In Gothic vaulting, any rib which does not spring from the impost and is not a ridge rib, but passes from one boss or intersection of the principal ribs to another.

In Gothic vaulting, one of the primary members of the vault. These are strong arches, meeting and crossing one another, dividing the whole space into triangles, which are then filled by vaulted construction of lighter material. Hence, an imitation of one of these in wood, plaster, or the like.

The rib of a groined vault, as being the solid abutment for each section of vaulting.

A similar decoration in some styles of vaulting, the ribs of the vault giving off the minor bars of which the tracery is composed.

The gallery or open space between the vaulting and the roof of the aisles of a church, often forming a rich arcade in the interior of the church, above the nave arches and below the clearstory windows.

To leap; to bound; to jump; to spring. Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself. Shak. Leaning on his lance, he vaulted on a tree. Dryden. Lucan vaulted upon Pegasus with all the heat and intrepidity of youth. Addison.