quatrefoil
Americannoun
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a leaf composed of four leaflets.
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Architecture. a panellike ornament composed of four lobes, divided by cusps, radiating from a common center.
noun
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a leaf composed of four leaflets
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architect a carved ornament having four foils arranged about a common centre, esp one used in tracery
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of quatrefoil
1375–1425; Middle English < Middle French quatre four + -foil (as in trefoil )
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The more intricate “LV” monogram pattern, with quatrefoil and flowers, appeared in 1896 as Georges’s tribute to his late father.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 2, 2026
The word “command” appears on Apple Macintosh keyboards, along with a quatrefoil icon that some people call the “splat” key.
From Washington Post ● Feb. 2, 2022
The unusual quatrefoil motifs of some individual quilt blocks are based on the four-pronged footprint of battlements known as star forts.
From New York Times ● Oct. 25, 2017
The biggest change is the proposed addition of a new fixed layer of translucent panels, each in the shape of a quatrefoil, hanging from the cathedral’s existing space-frame of white-painted steel tubes.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 17, 2016
The wall above is pierced by oculi of different sizes, some of which have quatrefoil tracery within, and the caps of the columns show an almost Romanesque variety and vivacity.
From The Shores of the Adriatic The Austrian Side, The Küstenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia by F. Hamilton (Frederick Hamilton) Jackson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
