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sconce

UK/skɒns/US/skɑns/
nounC2Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #13,343 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: sconces

A sconce is a bracket on a wall for holding a light. A brass sconce, wall sconces, light the sconce.

It held a candle and now holds a lamp, and the shape is unchanged in five hundred years. Fitting them means the light comes from the wall rather than the ceiling, which is why designers use them to soften a room. The word once meant a lantern with a screen.

Diderot~commonswiki · CC BY-SA 3.0

Definitions of sconce

  1. 1nounsconceA bracket on a wall for holding a light.C2

    “A brass sconce by the door held a single flickering candle.”

sconce is a fitting.

Remember it

SCONCE → it SCREENs the flame from the draught

It holds the candle against the wall and screens the flame from the draught.

hooks ontoscreen

Where it comes from

Old French esconse means a lantern, from Latin absconsus, hidden, from abscondere, to conceal.

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *deh₃-

  2. Latin

    absconsus — hidden

  3. Old French

    esconse — lantern

  4. Middle English

    sconce

  5. English, today

    sconce

Built from

  • sconse · Middle English — candlestick or lantern (with screen)
  • abscondō · Latin — hide

From Middle English sconce, sconse (“candlestick or lantern (with screen)”), from Old French esconse (“lantern”), from Latin absconsus (“hidden”), perfect passive participle of abscondō (“hide”). Cognate with abscond.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word

sconce in the wild

  • A sconce or wall light is a decorative light fixture that is mounted to a wall.

    Sconce (light fixture)

  • The sconce is a very old form of fixture, historically used with candles and oil lamps.

    Sconce (light fixture)

  • Several more or less intact sconces remain in the Netherlands.

    Sconce (fortification)

  • Fort de Kock was a 19th-century Dutch sconce fortification established over a hill in Bukittinggi, West Sumatra, Indonesia.

    Fort de Kock

  • Although the remnants of the mound and some cannons can still be seen, the original buildings on top of the sconce have been demolished.

    Fort de Kock

1 / 2

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.

Related words

the sconse family

sconce

sconce — used about once every 20,553 pages · #13,343 · point at the bar for the others