Forms: 6– cupola; also 7 coupolo, -ola, -ulo, cupula, -elo, -ilow, cuppola, -olo, -alo, 7–8 (9 dial.) cupolo, -alo, -ulo, -ilo. [a. It. cupola (also cuppola, cuppula in Florio), whence also f. coupole; ad. L. cūpula little cask, small vault, dim. of cūpa cask, tun: cf. also It. cupo hollow, concave.]
1. Arch. A rounded vault or dome forming the roof of any building or part of a building, or supported upon columns over a tomb, etc.; esp. applied to the pointed or bulbous domes of Saracenic architecture. Often spec.: A diminutive dome rising above a roof; a dome-like lantern or sky-light; in practical Architecture, the ceiling of a dome.
1549. Thomas, Hist. Italie, 137 b. Ouer the queere is an whole vaulte called Cupola, facioned like the halfe of an egge.
1615. G. Sandys, Trav., 161. Out of the Temple there arise two ample coupulos. Ibid., 166. This Round is couered with a Cupolo.
1662. Gerbier, Princ., 13. A Noble Paire of Staires should have a Cupelo, and no Windowes on the sides.
1670–98. Lassels, Voy. Italy, I. 188. On the top of it [the Domo of Florence] stands mounted a fair Cupola (or Tholus) made by Brunelleschi.
1682. Wheler, Journ. Greece, I. 75. The Mosques … have their high Cupuloes covered with Lead.
1716. Protestant Mercury, 7 Aug., 6. The Dome or Cupilo of the Cathedral of St. Paul’s.
1716–8. Lady M. W. Montague, Lett., I. xxxviii. 153. The roof of the cloisters divided into several cupolas or domes.
1730–6. Bailey (folio), Cupolo [in 1731 vol. II. Cupulo].
1793. Smeaton, Edystone L., § 66. In the very top of the lantern, that is, in the cupola.
1821. Byron, Juan, IV. civ. A little cupola, more neat than solemn, Protects his dust.
1867. Freeman, Norm. Conq. (1876), I. vi. 478. Beneath the spreading cupolas of a Byzantine basilica.
1879. Cassell’s Techn. Educ., IV. 300/1. The word dome is applied to the external part of the spherical … roof, and cupola to the internal part.
b. The revolving dome of an observatory.
1831. Brewster, Newton (1855), I. xiii. 369. The practical astronomer has but to look through the cleft in his revolving cupola.
c. transf.
1652. Benlowes, Theoph., XII. v. 220. Escuriall Tour’s that seem Heav’ns Cupulas.
1711. Addison, Spect., No. 98, ¶ 5. [Nature] seems to have designed the Head as the Cupola to the most glorious of her Works.
1865. Lubbock, Preh. Times, xii. (1869), 398. The immense cupola of ice which is known to exist round the South Pole.
2. Mech. (In full cupola-furnace.) A furnace for melting metals for casting; so called from a cupola or dome leading to the chimney, which is now frequently absent. Also, a furnace for heating shot to be fired at inflammable objects.
Now called at Sheffield, etc., cupelow, cupilo: cf. mod.F. cubilot, app. from English workmen.
1716. Lond. Gaz., No. 5425/9. The Lease for the Cupilo, or Copper-Works, at Lower Redbrooke.
1845. Stocqueler, Handbk. Brit. India (1854), 175. The casting or smelting-house, furnished with cupola blast-furnaces for the smelting of iron.
1861. Times, 23 July, 12/5. Cupolas for melting the iron for filling Martin’s liquid shells…. The cupola consists of a cylindrical shell of wrought-iron, lined with fire-brick, having a blast fan attached.
1885. Law Times’ Rep., LII. 738/1. They had erected a number of cupola and other furnaces.
3. An armor-plated revolving dome to protect mounted guns on an iron-clad ship; a turret. Hence cupola-ship, cupola vessel.
1862. Ann. Reg., 100. He had caused experiments to be made with Captain Coles’s cupola. Ibid., 106. A cupola vessel to carry great guns.
1873. Brit. Q. Rev., Jan., 102–3 We refer to the construction and trial [in 1861] of the first ‘cupola,’ or ‘shield,’ intended to protect guns mounted, with the shield, on a revolving turn-table.
4. In Anat., Zool., etc. A dome-like organ or process; esp. the arched dome-shaped summit of the cochlea of the ear.
1829. Bell, Anat. and Physiol. Human Body (ed. 7), III. 174. When we cut away the cupola or apex of the cochlea.
1865. Gosse, Land & Sea (1874), 156. Polycystina…. A prevailing type of form is a sort of dome or cupola, with an apical prolongation of spine.
5. attrib. and Comb., as cupola-painter, etc.; cupola-capped, -roofed adjs.; cupola-wise adv.; cupola-furnace (see 2); cupola-ship (see 3).
1754. Strype, Stow’s Surv., II. IV. vii. 112/2. Having a fine Porch ascended by steps and covered at the Top Cupulowise.
1710. Tatler, No. 153, ¶ 1. The famous Cupola-Painter of those Times.
1816. Keatinge, Trav. (1817), I. 205. A white building, with a cupola roof.
1862. H. Marryat, Year in Sweden, I. 282. Two lofty cupola-capped towers.
