FLYINGBUTTRESS

Flying buttress

A flying buttress is a specific form of buttressing most strongly associated with Gothic church architecture. The purpose of any buttress is to resist the lateral forces pushing a wall outwards by redirecting them to the ground. The defining characteristic of a flying buttress is that the buttress is not in contact with the wall like a traditional buttress; lateral forces are transmitted across an intervening space between the wall and the buttress.

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flying buttress

Noun

  1. a buttress that stands apart from the structure that it supports, and is connected to it by an arch (flyer).


The above text is a snippet from Wiktionary: flying buttress
and as such is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

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