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
- quatrefoiled adjective
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 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 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
Six slender columns divide its seven arches, while above them are trefoil and quatrefoil penetrations contained within a segmental arch, broken by carved heads.
From Cathedrals of Spain by John A.
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.
