cavetto

[ kuh-vet-oh; Italian kah-vet-taw ]

/ kəˈvɛt oʊ; Italian kɑˈvɛt tɔ /

noun, plural ca·vet·tos, ca·vet·ti [kuh-vet-ee; Italian kah-vet-tee] /kəˈvɛt i; Italian kɑˈvɛt ti/, Architecture.

a concave molding the outline of which is a quarter circle.

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We’ve gathered some interesting words donated to English from Portuguese … as well as some that just don’t translate at all. Do you know what they mean?

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Which of the following animal names traces its immediate origin to Portuguese?

owl

crow

piranha

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Words nearby cavetto

cavernous nerve of penis, cavernous rale, cavernous sinus, cavernous sinus syndrome, cavesson, cavetto, caviar, cavicorn, cavie, cavil, cavill

Origin of cavetto

1670–80; < Italian, equivalent to cav(o) (< Latin cavus or cavum hollow place; see cave) + -etto -et

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2020

Example sentences from the Web for cavetto

Yet the Torcello base resembles these Gothic ones both in expansion beneath and in depth of cavetto above.
The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3)|John Ruskin
Cavetto, ka-vet′to, n. a hollowed moulding whose curvature is the quarter of a circle, used chiefly in cornices.
Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary (part 1 of 4: A-D)|Various
One of the most distinctive mouldings is the cavetto, a wide shallow hollow in the centre of a group of mouldings.
English Villages|P. H. Ditchfield

British Dictionary definitions for cavetto

cavetto

/ (kəˈvɛtəʊ, Italian kaˈvetto) /

noun plural -ti (-tɪ, Italian -ti)

architect a concave moulding, shaped to a quarter circle in cross section

Word Origin for cavetto

C17: from Italian, from cavo hollow, from Latin cavus

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