Sconce

Definition of Sconce

n.	1.	A fortification, or work for defense; a fort. No sconce or fortress of his raising was ever known either to have been forced, or yielded up, or quitted. - Milton.
	2.	A hut for protection and shelter; a stall. One that . . . must raise a sconce by the highway and sell switches. - Beau. & Fl.
	3.	A piece of armor for the head; headpiece; helmet. I must get a sconce for my head. - Shak.
	4.	Fig.: The head; the skull; also, brains; sense; discretion. To knock him about the sconce with a dirty shovel. - Shak.
	5.	A poll tax; a mulct or fine.
	6.	A protection for a light; a lantern or cased support for a candle; hence, a fixed hanging or projecting candlestick. Tapers put into lanterns or sconces of several-colored, oiled paper, that the wind might not annoy them. - Evelyn. Golden sconces hang not on the walls. - Dryden.
	7.	Hence, the circular tube, with a brim, in a candlestick, into which the candle is inserted.
	8.	(Arch.) A squinch.
	9.	A fragment of a floe of ice.
	10.	A fixed seat or shelf.
v. t.	1.	To shut up in a sconce; to imprison; to insconce. [imp. & p. p. Sconced ; p. pr. & vb. n. Sconcing.] Immure him, sconce him, barricade him in 't. - Marston.
	2.	To mulct; to fine.

Related Words

abatis, advanced work, amercement, balistraria, bank, banquette, barbed-wire entanglement, barbican, barricade, barrier, bartizan, bastion, battlement, bean, belfry, bracket, brain, breastwork, brow, bulwark, candelabrum, candlestand, candlestick, casemate, chandelier, cheval-de-frise, chump, circumvallation, conk, contravallation, counterscarp, crown, curtain, damages, demibastion, dike, distraint, distress, dome, drawbridge, earthwork, encephalon, enclosure, entanglement, escarp, escarpment, escheat, escheatment, fence, fieldwork, fine, forfeit, forfeiture, fortalice, fortification, gas fixture, girandole, glacis, gray matter, head, headpiece, lamp holder, lampstand, light fixture, light socket, loophole, lunette, machicolation, mantelet, merlon, mound, mulct, noddle, noggin, noodle, organ of thought, outwork, palisade, parados, parapet, pate, poll, portcullis, postern gate, rampart, ravelin, redan, redoubt, ridge, sally port, scarp, seat of thought, sensation, sensorium, sensory, stockade, tenaille, torch holder, torch staff, vallation, vallum, wall bracket, work

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