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Vinony

sconce

noun

  1. wall-attached light fixture
  2. type of fortification
L327257 on Wikidata ↗

Wiktionary

Pronunciation: /skɒns/ / /skɑns/

noun

Etymology: Borrowed from Middle Dutch schans, cognate with German Schanze.

  1. A type of small fort or other fortification, especially as built to defend a pass or ford.

    “No sconce or fortress of his raising was ever known either to have been forced, or yielded up, or quitted.”

  2. A hut for protection and shelter; a stall.

    “one that […] must raise a sconce by the highway and sell switches”

  3. A squinch.
  4. A fragment of a floe of ice.

    “Just then, a broad sconce-piece or low water-washed berg came driving up from the southward. The thought flashed upon me of one of our escapes in Melville Bay; and as the sconce moved rapidly close alongside us, McGary managed to plant an anchor on its slope and hold on to it by a whale-line.”

  5. A fixed seat or shelf.

verb

Etymology: Borrowed from Middle Dutch schans, cognate with German Schanze.

  1. To shut within a sconce; to imprison.