Skip to content
ARCHIEENGLISH
LearnPlayWordsRanking
  • Learn
  • Play
  • Words
  • Ranking
  • Mine
← Vocabulary

awning

UK/ˈɔːnɪŋ/US/ˈɔnɪŋ/
nounB2+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #10,718 of 15,258leans written

Other forms: awnings

An awning is a sheet of cloth stretched out over a window or a door for shade. Canvas on a frame, wound out when the sun comes round.

Shops use them to keep the sun off the goods and cafés to keep the rain off the customers. Caravans have them too, and putting one up is a well-known test of a relationship. The word comes from a nautical term for canvas rigged over a deck. A canopy is the fixed version, and a parasol does the same job on a smaller scale.

Ikar.us · CC BY 3.0 de

Definitions of awning

  1. 1nounawningA sheet of canvas stretched over a door or window for shelter.B2+

    “They sat under the awning until the rain stopped.”

Where it comes from

  1. cel-gau

    *andebannā — eaves

  2. Old French

    anvant

  3. Middle French

    auvans — sloping roof

  4. English, today

    awning

Built from

  • *bandā · Proto-Celtic — horn; peak

1615-25 (nautical sense only); from *awn ing, reduction of Middle French auvans (“sloping roof”), from Old French anvant (1180), from cel-gau andebannā (“eaves”) (compare Occitan ambans (“parapet”)), form of ande- (compare Welsh an-, Old Irish ind-) + bandā (“horn; peak”) (compare Welsh ban, Irish beann).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Man Called Ove, Buildings & Architecture, Camping & Outdoors

First appears in chapter 28 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

awning in the wild

  • A velarium ("curtain") was a type of awning used in Roman times.

    Velarium

  • Upshaw did reach the awning, but a ring on his pitching hand became caught on a projection sticking out from the awning which tore ligaments in his hand.

    Cecil Upshaw

  • The glass awning has since been rebuilt to its full former glory.

    The Actors

  • Windows hinged at the top are referred to as awning windows, and ones hinged at the bottom are called hoppers.

    Casement window

  • Solemya is a genus of saltwater clams, marine bivalve mollusks in the family Solemyidae, the awning clams.

    Solemya

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.