cornices

Noun

cornice (plural cornices)

1. A horizontal architectural element of a building, projecting forward from the main walls, originally used as a means of directing rainwater away from the building's walls.
   • It is a large square structure, two and a half stories in height, with a hipped roof rising above a handsome cornice with prominent modillions and surmounted by a balustraded belvedere.1920, Frank Cousins, Phil M. Riley, The Colonial Architecture of Philadelphia, Boston: Little, Brown, and Company
2. A decorative element applied at the topmost part of the wall of a room, as with a crown molding.
   • That ceiling was covered with square compartments,[...] It was supported by a gilded cornice, carved into a thousand curious shapes and emblems, among which the horned wolf, the crest of the Avonleigh family, was conspicuous.1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XV, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume III, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 113
3. A decorative element at the topmost portion of certain pieces of furniture, as with a highboy.
   • And blood was on the roof, and great gouts of blood on the walls and on the cornice of my bed.1922, E[ric] R[ücker] Eddison, The Worm Ouroboros: A Romance, London: Jonathan Cape […], →OCLC, page 18
4. An overhanging edge of snow on a ridge or the crest of a mountain and along the sides of gullies.
   • Looking to the east we could see Api and the mountains of west Nepal, shapely snow peaks in the distance, while in the immediate foreground, much lower but still dramatic, were the peaks of Panch Chuli IV and V (III was hidden by the lip of a huge cornice), Telkot and Nagling, all of them...1999, Harish Kapadia, “Ascents in the Panch Chuli Group”, in Across Peaks & Passes in Kumaun Himalaya, New Delhi: Indus Publishing Company, →ISBN, page 136

   Synonyms:

   snow cornice

See all 5 meanings of cornice