hammerbeam

or ham·mer beam

[ ham-er-beem ]

nounArchitecture.
  1. a short wooden beam projecting from an interior wall to support or tie together rafters or arched roof braces.

Origin of hammerbeam

1
First recorded in 1820–25; hammer + beam

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use hammerbeam in a sentence

  • The open roof of hammer-beam design, with pendants, is especially characteristic of the work of that period.

    Milton's England | Lucia Ames Mead
  • Timber roofs reached their highest development in what is known as the Hammer-beam roof.

  • The roof, which is of chestnut, is of hammer-beam construction, with moulded spandrel brackets and circular shafts.

  • The roof is an open timber structure of the hammer-beam type, typical of fourteenth-century work.

    Westminster | Sir Walter Besant
  • This was most probably a hammer-beam roof, and was coloured and gilded and decorated with angels holding shields.

British Dictionary definitions for hammer beam

hammer beam

noun
  1. either of a pair of short horizontal beams that project from opposite walls to support arched braces and struts

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012