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architrave

UK/ˈɑɹ.kɪ.tɹeɪv/US/ˈɑɹ.kɪ.tɹeɪv/
nounC1Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #14,632 of 15,258Too rare in one of the two pools to compare — fewer than 20 uses in speech or in writing

Other forms: architraves

An architrave is the moulded frame around a door. Fit the architrave, a wooden architrave, paint the architrave.

It covers the gap between the frame and the plaster, which is a practical job dressed up as decoration. In classical architecture the architrave is the beam resting directly on the columns, which is the older sense.

G.dallorto · Attribution

Definitions of architrave

  1. 1nounarchitraveThe moulded frame around a door.C1

    “He painted the architrave around the kitchen door a pale grey.”

architrave is a moulding.

Where it comes from

Italian architrave is archi-, chief, plus trave, a beam.

  1. Italian

    architrave

  2. English, today

    architrave

Built from

  • archi- · Italian — main
  • trave · Italian — beam

First attested 1563, borrowed from Italian architrave, from archi- (“main”) + trave (“beam”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

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architrave in the wild

  • The horizontal elements are called by a variety of names including lintel, header, architrave or beam, and the supporting vertical elements may be called posts, columns, or pillars.

    Post and lintel

  • Even when neither columns nor pilasters are expressed, on an astylar wall it lies upon the architrave ("main beam") and is capped by the moldings of the cornice.

    Frieze

  • The balcony window on the first floor has a segmental pediment and shouldered architrave.

    Thorpe Hall (Peterborough)

  • A gutta (Latin pl. guttae, "drops") is a small water-repelling, cone-shaped projection used near the top of the architrave of the Doric order in classical architecture.

    Gutta

  • At the top of the architrave blocks, a row of six guttae below the narrow projection of the taenia (fillet) formed an element called a regula.

    Gutta

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.