cornice

English

Cornice, Wainwright Building, St. Louis (Louis Sullivan)

A snow cornice.

Etymology

From Middle French corniche or Italian cornice, from Latin cornīx (“crow”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈkɔːnɪs/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈkoɹnɪs/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Noun

cornice (plural cornices)

1. (architecture) A horizontal architectural element of a building, projecting forward from the main walls, originally used as a means of directing rainwater away from the building's walls.
2. A decorative element applied at the topmost part of the wall of a room, as with a crown molding.
   • 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XV, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume III, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 113:

     That ceiling was covered with square compartments,[...] It was supported by a gilded cornice, carved into a thousand curious shapes and emblems, among which the horned wolf, the crest of the Avonleigh family, was conspicuous.

   • 1925 July – 1926 May, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “In which Challenger Meets a Strange Colleague”, in The Land of Mist (eBook no. 0601351h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg Australia, published April 2019:

     Challenger looked up at the cornice and round at the skirting.

   • 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 1, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:

     The half-dozen pieces […] were painted white and carved with festoons of flowers, birds and cupids. […]   The bed was the most extravagant piece.  Its graceful cane halftester rose high towards the cornice and was so festooned in carved white wood that the effect was positively insecure, as if the great couch were trimmed with icing sugar.

3. A decorative element at the topmost portion of certain pieces of furniture, as with a highboy.
   • 1922, E[ric] R[ücker] Eddison, The Worm Ouroboros‎^[1], London: Jonathan Cape, page 18:

     And blood was on the roof, and great gouts of blood on the walls and on the cornice of my bed.

4. (geography, mountaineering) An overhanging edge of snow on a ridge or the crest of a mountain and along the sides of gullies.

   Synonym: snow cornice

   • 1999, Harish Kapadia, “Ascents in the Panch Chuli Group”, in Across Peaks & Passes in Kumaun Himalaya, New Delhi: Indus Publishing Company, →ISBN, page 136:

     Looking to the east we could see Api and the mountains of west Nepal, shapely snow peaks in the distance, while in the immediate foreground, much lower but still dramatic, were the peaks of Panch Chuli IV and V (III was hidden by the lip of a huge cornice), Telkot and Nagling, all of them unclimbed, all steep and challenging.

Derived terms

• cornice ring
• cornicework
• snow cornice

 

Translations

horizontal architectural element

• Belarusian: карні́з m (karníz), гзымс m (hzyms)
• Bulgarian: корни́з (bg) m (korníz)
• Catalan: cornisa (ca) f
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 壁帶 / 壁带 (zh) (bìdài)

• Czech: římsa f (architecture), ozdobná lišta (furniture, ceiling)
• Dutch: kroonlijst (nl) f, deklijst f
• Esperanto: kornico
• Finnish: korniisi (fi)
• French: corniche (fr) f
• Galician: cornixa (gl) f
• German: Gesims (de) n, Sims (de) m, Kranzgesims n, Kranz (de) m, Mauerbrüstung f, Brüstung (de) f, Gardinenstange (de) f, Randleiste f
• Greek: κορωνίδα (el) f (koronída)

  Ancient: θριγκός m (thrinkós), γεῖσον n (geîson)

• Irish: coirnis f
• Italian: cornice (it), cornicione (it) m
• Japanese: コーニス (kōnisu)
• Macedonian: ко́рниз m (kórniz)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: gesims m

  Nynorsk: gesims m

• Ottoman Turkish: قورنیزه (korniza)
• Persian: قرنیز (fa) (qarniz)
• Polish: gzyms (pl) m
• Portuguese: cornija (pt) f
• Russian: карни́з (ru) m (karníz)
• Serbo-Croatian: venac (sh) m
• Slovak: rímsa f
• Spanish: cornisa (es) f
• Swedish: kornisch (sv) c, taklist (sv) c
• Tagalog: kornisa
• Turkish: korniş (tr)

decorative element at top of room

• Danish: stuk (da) c or n
• German: Stuckleiste f, Fries (de) m, Randleiste f

decorative element on furniture

• German: Kranz (de) m, Randleiste f, Schmuckleiste f

an accumulation of snow

• Czech: římsa f, převis (cs) m
• French: corniche (fr) f
• German: Wächte (de) f, überhängende Kante f, Schneewächte f, Wechte (de) f

See also

• eaves
• fascia

Verb

cornice (third-person singular simple present cornices, present participle cornicing, simple past and past participle corniced)

1. (transitive) To furnish or decorate with a cornice.

Further reading

• cornice on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• Creonic, crocein

Italian

Etymology

From Latin cornīx (“crow”), influenced by Ancient Greek κορωνίς (korōnís, “curved line”) from the same root.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /korˈni.t͡ʃe/
• Rhymes: -itʃe
• Hyphenation: cor‧nì‧ce

Noun

cornice f (plural cornici)

1. (poetic, obsolete) carrion crow

   Synonym: cornacchia

2. frame
3. (architecture) cornice

   Synonym: cornicione

4. ledge
5. (figurative) background, setting

Derived terms

• cornicione
• incorniciare

Anagrams

• crenico, eccrino, riccone

Latin

Noun

cōrnīce

1. ablative singular of cōrnīx

Romanian

Noun

cornice f (plural cornice)

1. Alternative form of cornișă

Declension

	singular			plural
	indefinite	definite		indefinite	definite
nominative-accusative	cornice	cornicea		cornice	cornicele
genitive-dative	cornice	cornicei		cornice	cornicelor
vocative	cornice, corniceo			cornicelor