From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishbuttressbut‧tress1 /ˈbʌtrəs/ noun [countable] TBCa brick or stone structure built to support a wall
Examples from the Corpus
buttress• For centuries it has been a buttress against the onslaught of Chaos from the wastes to the north.• On a sunny evening you can stay to catch the last of the sun's rays highlighting Scafell's famous buttresses.• Moreover, in the building of the great Gothic cathedrals many new devices were introduced, including flying buttresses.• Between the chapels radiate the forests of flying buttresses.• Two square halls would give the effect. externally. of solid massive buttresses, while internally they would serve as picture galleries.• There was a narrow stone path, Alexei now saw, around the base of the promontory beyond the buttress.• Above lies 40 feet of delicate arête, poised on the crest of the buttress.• The buttresses of all grades are black and the gullies are trickling away into the valley streams.buttressbuttress2 verb [transitive] formal SUPPORT A PERSON, GROUP, OR PLANto support a system, idea, argument etc, especially by providing money The evidence seemed to buttress their argument.→ See Verb tableExamples from the Corpus
buttress• Others had been Jacked and buttressed.• To last for very long any social system needs to be buttressed by a powerful integrating ideology.• The resistance is buttressed by dim understanding of how a decentralized approach can improve matters.• Kotkin gave statistics to buttress his argument.• The example of Phil Gramm, who had a large war chest but could not move voters, buttressed his argument.• And the government's recent promise to give the central bank independence should buttress its authority in the markets.• It reformed the judicial system, buttressing its independence, and introduced parliamentary scrutiny of important public sector contracts and appointments.• These effectively buttressed the sector against the kind of cutthroat competition raging amongst operators.Origin buttress1 (1300-1400) Old French boterez, from boter; → BUTT2 