points d'appui

Noun

point d'appui (plural points d'appui)

1. A given point or body upon which troops are formed, or by which they are marched in line or column.
   • Marched from the left, and to deployer to the left.—In which caſe the right squadron moves ſtreight forward to the point d'appui marked by the Quarter Maſter, &c. &c.1795, Rules and Regulations for the Cavalry, Adjutant General's Office, page 364
2. An advantageous defensive support; a foothold.
   • Its intention and its method is to "stand back from natural objects, leaving them as they are and adjusting ourselves to them," and its point d'appui and point de depart is sense experience (PhN §246 Zusatz).1989, Daniel Berthold-Bond, Hegel's Grand Synthesis: A Study of Being, Thought, and History, State University of New York Press, page 40
3. A specific note, chord, or phrase that serves as a stable reference point within a piece of music, providing harmonic or melodic grounding.
   • Any note belonging to these forms a point d'appui, which may be used mentally to pass to any note standing in a simple relation to the point d'appui.1878, “Musical Association”, in The academy, volume 13, page 328
4. A focal point; a centre of attention.
   • Get a point d'appui from which to make your approaches, bring out the key-note to which the strained heart-chords shall respond in harmonious echo, and the battle is half won.1871, Alonzo Calkins, Opium and the Opium-appetite, page 235
5. An anchor point against which one pushes.
   • Thus the wine merchant and coachman of whom we shall presently speak were obliged, the one to perforate continually the casks with a gimlet, the other to ply his whip unceasingly on the backs of his jaded horses: it is also seen in masons who lift stones with the extremities of the fingers, in...1834, Baron Dupuytren, “Permanent Retractions of the Fingers, Produced by an Affection of the Palmar Fascia”, in The Lancet, volume 2, page 222