Also 8 zocle, soccle. [a. F. socle, ad. It. zoccolo (also a clog or patten), repr. L. socculus, dim. of soccus SOCK sb.1 So G. sockel († socle, zocle).]
1. A low plain block or plinth serving as a pedestal to a statue, column, vase, etc.; also, a plain plinth forming a foundation for a wall.
1704. J. Harris, Lex. Techn., I. Zocle is a square member in Architecture,… which serves to support a Pillar [etc.].
1726. Leoni, Alberti’s Archit., I. 39/1. The first Ground-work of your Wall, and the Soccles, which are call’d Foundations too.
1728. Chambers, Cycl., s.v. Pedestal, In the Base are a Plinth for a Socle, over that a Tore carved.
1797. T. Holcroft, trans. Stolberg’s Trav., III. lxxxviii. (ed. 2), 455. The pillars stand upon socles.
1843. Civil Eng. & Arch. Jrnl., VI. 229/1. An order of square pillars … raised not on a stylobate but merely a socle.
1880. Nature, XXI. 265. A high round pedestal formed by the roaming sea-water, like the socle of a monument.
2. ‘One of the ridges or elevations which support the tentacles and sense-bodies of some worms’ (Cent. Dict., 1891).
Socle, obs. form of SUCKLE v.
