ppl. a. [f. VAULT sb.1 or v.1]
1. Having the form of a vault; arched or rounded.
† a. Of the chin. Obs.–1
a. 1533. Ld. Berners, Huon, cxlvi. 549. Her skynne was as whyte as ye floure in the mede,… her throte smoth and clere, her chyne vauted [printed vaunted; Fr. voltis].
b. Of a roof or ceiling, etc.
1552. Huloet, Vaulted rowffe, testudinatum tectum.
1579–80. North, Plutarch, Lycurgus (1895), I. 126. The fayer embowed or vawted roofes, or … fretised seelings.
1635. Swan, Spec. M., iv. § 1 (1643), 54. The world being mans house, the Firmament is as the vaulted roof of it.
1697. Dryden, Virg. Georg., IV. 536. Now to the Court arriv’d, th’ admiring Son Beholds the vaulted Roofs of Pory Stone.
1703. Rowe, Ulysses, III. i. Raging Mirth With peals of Clamour shakes the vaulted Roof.
1789. Smyth, trans. Aldrich’s Archit. (1818), 115. Terms applied without distinction to all vaulted ceilings whatever.
1844. A. P. de Lisle, in E. Purcell, Life (1900), I. vii. 122. It contains fine stained glass, and a vaulted ceiling painted with semi-Gothick patterns.
1879. Dixon, Windsor, III. xii. 109. A vaulted arch supported an upper chamber.
c. Of the sky. (Cf. VAULT sb.1 1 c.)
c. 1590. Montgomerie, Sonnets, lvi. Vnderneth the heuinly vauted round.
1595. Spenser, Col. Clout, 611. The fume … mounts fro thence In rolling globes vp to the vauted skies.
1611. Shaks., Cymb., I. vi. 33. Hath Nature giuen them eyes To see this vaulted Arch, and the rich Crop Of Sea and Land?
1700. Dryden, Pal. & Arc., III. 524. The vaulted Firmament With loud Acclaims, and vast Applause is rent.
a. 1763. Shenstone, Elegies, vi. 26. Pale Cynthia mounts the vaulted sky.
1804. J. Grahame, Sabbath, 97. A temple, one not made with hands, The vaulted firmament.
1871. B. Taylor, Faust (1875), I. II. 44. Lost in the vaulted azure The lark sends down his flickering lay.
d. In miscellaneous uses.
1681. Grew, Musæum, I. VI. i. 140. The Vaulted-Limpet. Patella concamerata.
1793. Martyn, Lang. Bot., s.v., Vaulted, fornicatus; arched.
1796. Withering, Brit. Plants (ed. 3), III. 514. Bloss[om] upper lip vaulted.
1828. Stark, Elem. Nat. Hist., II. 47. Umbilicus large, armed with small vaulted scales.
1842. Prichard, Nat. Hist. Man, 47. Wild horses have larger heads than domestic horses, with more vaulted foreheads.
1858. Birch, Anc. Pottery, II. 75. A vase … having a vaulted cover.
1870. Rolleston, Anim. Life, p. lvi. The skull [in reptiles] is less vaulted and less capacious than in Aves.
2. Constructed or furnished with an arched roof; covered in or roofed by a vault.
1601. Holland, Pliny, II. 243. The artificiall baines and vaulted stouves and hot houses, which then were newly come vp.
1633. P. Fletcher, Purple Isl., V. li. This vaulted Tower’s half built of massie stone.
1687. A. Lovell, trans. Thevenot’s Trav., II. 26. In this Court there are Lodging-rooms under a vaulted Gallery that runs all round it.
1717. Berkeley, Jrnl. Tour Italy, Wks. 1871, IV. 520. Below stairs we saw several vaulted chambers.
1794. Mrs. Radcliffe, Myst. Udolpho, xxxi. I have only to go … along the vaulted passage and across the great hall.
1830. Whewell, Archit. Notes, 5. In a vaulted church, we have in general one vault which runs longitudinally along the church.
1865. W. G. Palgrave, Arabia, II. 320. The heavy winter rains supply the vaulted cisterns.
a. 1878. Sir G. Scott, Lect. Archit. (1879), I. 247. Viollet le Duc says, the design for a vaulted building has to be commenced at the top and worked downwards.
transf. 1730–46. Thomson, Autumn, 78. To dig the mineral from the vaulted earth.
1820. Shelley, Prometh. Unb., II. v. 104. A paradise of vaulted bowers.
1878. B. Taylor, Deukalion, I. i. 15. At the bases of the mountain’s lofty vaulted entrances of caverns.
3. Immured as in a vault.
1863. R. S. Hawker, in Life, xx. (1905), 450. Very few could stand this vaulted life of mine.
Hence Vaultedly adv.
1822. J. Parkinson, Outl. Oryctol., 127. The shell round it being vaultedly convex.
