Word Direct Answers

sconce

sconce is defined in Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1913) with 11 senses. The full text of each entry is reproduced verbatim below.

Definitions

  1. 1.A hut for protection and shelter; a stall. One that . . . must raise a sconce by the highway and sell switches. Beau. & Fl.
  2. 2.A piece of armor for the head; headpiece; helmet. I must get a sconce for my head. Shak.
  3. 3.Fig.: The head; the skull; also, brains; sense; discretion. [Colloq.] To knock him about the sconce with a dirty shovel. Shak.
  4. 4.A poll tax; a mulct or fine. Johnson.
  5. 5.Etym: [OF. esconse a dark lantern, properly, a hiding place. See Etymol. above.] A protection for a light; a lantern or cased support for a candle; hence, a fixed hanging or projecting candlestick. Tapers put into lanterns or sconces of several-colored, oiled paper, that the wind might not annoy them. Evelyn. Golden sconces hang not on the walls. Dryden.
  6. 6.Hence, the circular tube, with a brim, in a candlestick, into which the candle is inserted.
  7. 7.(Arch.) A squinch.
  8. 8.A fragment of a floe of ice. Kane.
  9. 9.Etym: [Perhaps a different word.] A fixed seat or shelf. [Prov. Eng.]
  10. 10.To shut up in a sconce; to imprison; to insconce. [Obs.] Immure him, sconce him, barricade him in 't. Marston.
  11. 11.To mulct; to fine. [Obs.] Milton.

Source: Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913 edition (public domain, via GCIDE / Project Gutenberg).

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