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cavetto

[kuh-vet-oh; Italian kah-vet-taw]
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noun, plural ca·vet·tos, ca·vet·ti [kuh-vet-ee; Italian kah-vet-tee] /kəˈvɛt i; Italian kɑˈvɛt ti/, Architecture.
  1. a concave molding the outline of which is a quarter circle.
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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. 2018

Examples from the Web for cavetto

Historical Examples

  • 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.

  • 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

noun plural -ti (-tɪ, Italian -ti)
  1. architect a concave moulding, shaped to a quarter circle in cross section
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Word Origin

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