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
It has deep turquoise linoleum with a gold quatrefoil pattern and two thresholds, suggesting that it lay at the juncture of three rooms.
From New York Times ● Jan. 11, 2018
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
In the tympanum of the arch there is a bas-relief figure of Our Lord in a quatrefoil recess.
From Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Lichfield A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief History of the Espicopal See by Clifton, A. B.
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.
