Arch. [var. SCUNCH sb.]
† 1. A stone cut to serve as a scuncheon. Obs.
c. 1500–18. Acc. Building Louth Spire, in Archaeol. (1792), X. 80. Also paid to Nicholas Brancell for 100 foot achlere, and squinches of 18 inches high and 15 at the least.
2. A straight or arched support constructed across an angle in order to carry some superstructure.
It is not clear whether Parker had any authority for this use of the term.
1840. Parker, Gloss. Arch. (ed. 3), I. 203. Ibid. (1850), (ed. 5), I. 441. Because they have no tendency to expand the walls, which is always to be feared when the arched squinch is used. Ibid. The straight squinch is often employed externally.
1886. Archaeol. Cant., XVI. p. lxvii. The squinch in the north-east corner of the tower, supporting the staircase.
attrib. 1850. Parker, Gloss. Arch. (ed. 5), II. 79. In the first example two of the squinch arches for carrying the octagonal faces of the spire are shewn.
1895. Edin. Rev., April, 466. The squinch-arch method is more elastic in this respect.
3. A small structure, with two triangular faces, sloping back from an angle of a tower against the superimposed side of a spire.
1848. Rickman, Styles Archit., p. xxxi. A good specimen of a plain tower and broach-spire, with squinches and spire-lights.
1849. Arch. Notes Ch. Archdeaconry Northampt., 192. [The spire’s] great height, the very small size of the squinches connecting it with the square Tower [etc.].
