gutta
Americannoun
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a drop, or something resembling one.
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Also called drop. Architecture. one of a series of pendent ornaments, generally in the form of a frustum of a cone, attached to the undersides of the mutules of the Doric entablature.
noun
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architect one of a set of small droplike ornaments, esp as used on the architrave of a Doric entablature
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gt. med (formerly used in writing prescriptions) a technical name for drop
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of gutta
1350–1400; Middle English goute, gutta < Latin gutta a drop
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.
See Examples For:
Within hours of carrying the first telegram across the English Channel in 1850, the earliest “submarine telegraph”—27 miles of copper wire wrapped in a rubbery substance called gutta percha—was broken by a fishing trawler.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 4, 2026
Evolutions are always preferable to revolutions and gutta cavat lapidem, non vi sed saepe cadendo.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 5, 2022
It was also an impressive feat, given that Terry and his teammates were hitting rubberlike gutta percha balls with handmade wooden-shafted clubs that, instead of numbers, bore names like brassie, niblick, spoon and cleek.
From New York Times ● Oct. 31, 2021
He was using a gutta percha golf ball.
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 12, 2019
This property of softening on heating and solidifying when cooled again, without change in its original properties, enables gutta percha to be worked into various forms, rolled into sheets or drawn into ropes.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 12, Slice 6 "Groups, Theory of" to "Gwyniad" by Various
In the Parthenon the frieze takes the place of the internal metopes, of which however a trace remains in the guttae which occur at regular intervals below the frieze, and which imply triglyphs.—Cockerell,
From A Catalogue of Sculpture in the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities, British Museum, Volume I (of 2) by Smith, A. H.
The height of the architrave, including taenia and guttae, is one module, and of the taenia, one seventh of a module.
From The Ten Books on Architecture by Vitruvius Pollio
Similar guttae are carved under the mutules of the Doric cornice, representing the pins driven through the mutules to secure the rafters.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 12, Slice 6 "Groups, Theory of" to "Gwyniad" by Various
Three rows of six guttae each are attached to the under surface of a mutule.
From A History of Greek Art by Tarbell, Frank Bigelow
The guttae, extending as wide as the triglyphs and beneath the taenia, should hang down for one sixth of a module, including their regula.
From The Ten Books on Architecture by Vitruvius Pollio
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.
