Forms: 4 butres, 5 boterace, boteras, butras, botrass, boterasse, (bountrace), botrase, 6 buttereis, butteras, bottras, butrese, butteresse, 6–7 buttresse, 7 buttrise, buttrice, boutrisse, 8 butteress, butteridge, 7– buttress. [perh. a. OF. bouterez nom. sing. (or ? pl.) of bouteret, ‘flying-buttress,’ ‘arc-boutant’ (Godef.); app. f. bouter to push, bear against.]
1. A structure of wood, stone or brick built against a wall or building to strengthen or support it.
1388. Wyclif, Ezek. xli. 15. He mat the boteraces on euer either side of an hundrid cubitis.
1393. Test. Ebor. (1836), I. 185. My body to be graven in the mynster-garth be-for the butres at the charnell.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 45. Boteras of a walle, machinis, muripula.
1487. Churchw. Acc. Wigtoft, Lincolnsh. (Nicholls, 1797), 82. Lyme for mendyng and stoppyng of the Botrasses.
1501. Douglas, Pal. Hon., 1437. Subtile muldrie wrocht mony day agone, On buttereis, jalme, pillaris.
1530. Palsgr., 432/2. This pyller within the churche answereth to this butteras without forthe.
1570. Levins, Manip., 84. A Buttresse, fulcimentum.
1605. Shaks., Macb., I. vi. 7. No Jutty frieze, Buttrice, nor Coigne of Vantage.
1682. Wheler, Journ. Greece, IV. 296. The Pilaster … is propped on both sides with Buttrices.
1789. Smyth, trans. Aldrich’s Archit. (1818), 84. He proposes to erect brick buttresses at the angles.
1849. Freeman, Archit., 157. A long dead wall, unbroken by porch or buttress.
b. fig.
1436. Pol. Poems (1859), II. 187. Wyth alle youre myghte take hede To kepe Yrelond … Ffor it is a boterasse and a poste Undre England.
1550. Bale, Image Both Ch., F viij.
1639. Fuller, Holy War, V. xxv. (1840), 287. Though his title was builded on a bad foundation, yet it had strong buttresses.
1702. Eng. Theoph., 300. To transform those into butteresses of reputation, who threaten’d to ruin the same.
2. loosely, A prop, support; a pier or abutment.
1609. Holland, Amm. Marcell., XXIII. iv. 222. Under which piece of wood there lyeth a huge great boutrisse or supporter [fulmentum], even hayre-cloth stuffed full of [etc.].
1745. trans. Columella’s Husb., I. v. The foundations … will … serve as a butteridge and underpropping.
1850. Prescott, Mexico, I. 155. An aqueduct that was carried over hill and valley, for several miles, on huge buttresses of masonry.
3. A projecting portion of a hill or mountain looking like the buttress of a building.
1682. Wheler, Journ. Greece, VI. 453. It is … situated as it were between the two Buttrices of the Mountain.
1814. Cary, Dante (1871), 145. We … stood Upon the second buttress of that mount.
1879. F. Malleson, in Lett. to Clergy, 51. In the deep hollow between the mountain and its opposing buttress, the Dow Crags.
4. Phys. a. Used as a translation of the F. éperon; b. a bony process or protuberance.
1836–9. Todd, Cycl. Anat., II. 749/2. And between them [i.e., two portions of the bowel] is that double partition termed ‘eperon’ or buttress by Dupuytren. Ibid. (1849–52), IV. 894/2. Triangular plates of bone forming a zig-zag buttress. Ibid. (1859), V. 139/1. The pelvis presents two lateral curved thickened buttresses or columns.
5. Fortification. (See quot.)
1802. James, Mil. Dict., Fortification, Counter-forts … are by some called buttresses; they are solids of masonry, built behind walls, and joined to them at 18 feet distance from center to center, in order to strengthen them.
6. Comb., as buttress-less, -like adjs. See also FLYING-BUTTRESS.
1882. Athenæum, 1 April, 408/2. The buttressless tower of St. Stephen’s.
1853. Kane, Grinnell Exp., xxxi. These escarped masses became more buttress-like and monumental.
