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# buttress

«buttress» in Mova's school dictionary: **a thick wall or support of stone or brick built against a…** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 1 sentence of Mova's corpora that use it.

### part of speech

noun (a buttress, buttresses); verb (buttress, buttresses, buttressed, buttressing)

### meaning for a pupil

1) A buttress is a thick wall or support of stone or brick built against a wall to hold it up and stop it falling outwards. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/B/buttress/#m1)

2) A flying buttress is an arch that reaches from a separate pillar to support a tall wall, as in Gothic cathedrals. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/B/buttress/#m2)

3) To buttress something is to support or strengthen it, often an argument or idea. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/B/buttress/#m3)

4) A buttress root is a wide, flat root that holds up a tall rainforest tree. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/B/buttress/#m4)

### sense in the lessons

In history and design lessons buttresses let medieval builders make cathedrals with tall, thin walls and big stained-glass windows (Notre-Dame, Westminster Abbey). In science lessons rainforest trees have buttress roots. In English, «buttress your argument with evidence» means support it. Phrases: flying buttress, buttress roots, buttress an argument.

### examples

- The old church wall is held up by stone buttresses. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/B/buttress/#x1)
- Flying buttresses support the walls of Notre-Dame in Paris. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/B/buttress/#x2)
- Rainforest trees have huge buttress roots. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/B/buttress/#x3)
- Buttresses let builders make tall walls with big windows. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/B/buttress/#x4)
- She buttressed her argument with lots of facts. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/B/buttress/#x5)
- The castle wall had a buttress at each corner. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/B/buttress/#x6)
- We crawled between the buttress roots of a giant fig tree. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/B/buttress/#x7)

### note

Plural buttresses. The verb is formal; in everyday talk say «support». Do not confuse with «butter».

### In the corpora

- [Buttress roots spread out like walls around many rainforest trees and hold the tall tree up in thin soil.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/157-the-amazon-forest-floor/14/)

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «buttress» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/B/buttress/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.