Word.ws English Dictionary

buttress

/ˈbʌtɹəs/US/ˈbʌtɹɪs/

buttress noun: a brick, concrete or stone structure built against another structure to support it.

Noun

buttress (plural buttresses)

  1. A brick, concrete or stone structure built against another structure to support it.
    • It was decided, therefore, to build eight concrete buttresses from the new strengthening work to safeguard the general stability of the wall along the length where the greatest movement had taken place.1954 June, “Strengthening of River Calder Retaining Wall, N.E.R.”, in Railway Magazine, page 429
    Synonyms:
    counterfort, brace
  2. (broadly) Anything that serves to support something; a prop.
  3. A buttress root.
  4. A feature jutting prominently out from a mountain or rock.
    • Crowell Buttresses, Dismal Buttress
    • All that day they rode into broken land. The prairie with its grass and rolling hills was behind them, and they entered a sparse, dry, rocky country, full of draws and short cañons and ominous buttresses.2005, Will Cook, Until Darkness Disappears, page 54
    Synonyms:
    crag, bluff
  5. (figuratively) Anything that supports or strengthens.
    • the grand pillar and buttress of the good old cause of nonconformity1692 October 30, Robert South, A Further Account of the Nature and Measures of Conscience

Verb

buttress (third-person singular simple present buttresses, present participle buttressing, simple past and past participle buttressed)

  1. To support something physically with, or as if with, a prop or buttress.
  2. (broadly, figuratively) To support something or someone by supplying evidence.
    • Buttressed by elaborate account statements and a deep reservoir of trust from his investors and regulators, Mr. Madoff steered his fraud scheme safely through a severe recession in the early 1990s, a global financial crisis in 1998 and the anxious aftermath of the terrorist attacks in September...2021 April 14, Diana B. Henriques, “Bernard Madoff, Architect of Largest Ponzi Scheme in History, Is Dead at 82”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

buttress meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam

buttress in Tamil

மிண்டு, உதை சுவா, உதைகால்

buttress in Urdu

آڑ

buttress in Bengali

সমর্থন দেওয়া, শক্তিশালী করা

buttress in Malayalam

prop, support, abutment
മുട്ടുതൂൺ, ചാര്, മുട്ടുതൂണ്, താങ്ങ്, ധരുണം, ധർണ്ണസം
defence, safeguard, protection
രക്ഷാവ്യവസ്ഥ, സുരക്ഷിതത്വത്തിനുള്ള മുൻകരുതൽ, തുണ, രക്ഷ, ആധാരം, സംരക്ഷണം നല്കുന്നവസ്തു
reinforce, strengthen, fortify
മുട്ടുതൂൺ കൊടുത്തു നിർത്തുക, താങ്ങിനിർത്തുക, ശക്തിപ്പെടുത്തുക, താങ്ങുകൊടുക്കുക, ബലപ്പെടുത്തുക, പ്രബലപ്പെടുത്തുക
More languagesFewer languages
buttress in Kannada
ತಾಂಗು, ಊರೆಗಂಬ, ಆಧಾರ, ಊರೆಕೊಡು

Examples of buttress in a sentence

  • Two short pitches up a chimney-crack are followed by a traverse right to the centre of the buttress.2010, Tony Howard, Treks and Climbs in Wadi Rum, Jordan, →ISBN, page 84:
  • Buttressed by elaborate account statements and a deep reservoir of trust from his investors and regulators, Mr.2021 April 14, Diana B. Henriques, “Bernard Madoff, Architect of Largest Ponzi Scheme in History, Is Dead at 82”, in The New York Times...

All 19 example sentences with buttress

Synonyms of buttress

All synonyms of buttress

Forms of buttress

Noun
pluralbuttresses
alternative formbuttrice
Verb
third-person singular presentbuttresses
present participlebuttressing
past participlebuttressed
pastbuttressed

Plural of buttress: buttresses

Origin of buttress

From Old French ars bouterez (noun, literally “supporting arcs”), from bouterez (adjective), oblique plural of bouteret (rare in the singular), from Frankish *bôtan, from Proto-Germanic *bautaną (“to push”). Ultimately cognate with beat.

Words formed from buttress

Phrases with buttress

Questions about buttress

What does buttress mean?
Buttress means a brick, concrete or stone structure built against another structure to support it.
What is buttress in Tamil?
Buttress in Tamil is மிண்டு, உதை சுவா, உதைகால். See Buttress meaning in Tamil.
How do you use buttress in a sentence?
Two short pitches up a chimney-crack are followed by a traverse right to the centre of the buttress.
What part of speech is buttress?
Buttress can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce buttress?
Buttress is pronounced /ˈbʌtɹəs/ (UK).
What is the plural of buttress?
The plural of buttress is buttresses.

Words near buttress in the dictionary

  1. buttplugs
  2. buttprint
  3. buttprints
  4. Buttram
  5. Buttrams
  6. buttress
  7. buttress root
  8. buttress roots
  9. buttress-root
  10. buttress-roots
  11. buttressed

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: buttress (page history and authors); buttress (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); buttress (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); buttress (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); buttress (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); buttress (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-buttress.wav.

Cite this entry: “buttress.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/buttress. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.