sconce

sconce
    n 1: a shelter or screen providing protection from enemy fire or
         from the weather
    2: a small fort or earthwork defending a ford, pass, or castle
       gate
    3: a candle or flaming torch secured in a sconce
    4: a decorative wall bracket for holding candles or other
       sources of light
    

Sconce \Sconce\, n. [D. schans, OD. schantse, perhaps from OF.
   esconse a hiding place, akin to esconser to hide, L.
   absconsus, p. p. of abscondere. See {Abscond}, and cf.
   {Ensconce}, {Sconce} a candlestick.]
   1. A fortification, or work for defense; a fort.
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            No sconce or fortress of his raising was ever known
            either to have been forced, or yielded up, or
            quitted.                              --Milton.
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   2. A hut for protection and shelter; a stall.
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            One that . . . must raise a sconce by the highway
            and sell switches.                    --Beau. & Fl.
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   3. A piece of armor for the head; headpiece; helmet.
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            I must get a sconce for my head.      --Shak.
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   4. Fig.: The head; the skull; also, brains; sense;
      discretion. [Colloq.]
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            To knock him about the sconce with a dirty shovel.
                                                  --Shak.
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   5. A poll tax; a mulct or fine. --Johnson.
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   6. [OF. esconse a dark lantern, properly, a hiding place. See
      Etymol. above.] A protection for a light; a lantern or
      cased support for a candle; hence, a fixed hanging or
      projecting candlestick.
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            Tapers put into lanterns or sconces of
            several-colored, oiled paper, that the wind might
            not annoy them.                       --Evelyn.
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            Golden sconces hang not on the walls. --Dryden.
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   7. Hence, the circular tube, with a brim, in a candlestick,
      into which the candle is inserted.
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   8. (Arch.) A squinch.
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   9. A fragment of a floe of ice. --Kane.
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   10. [Perhaps a different word.] A fixed seat or shelf. [Prov.
       Eng.]
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Sconce \Sconce\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Sconced}; p. pr. & vb. n.
   {Sconcing}.]
   1. To shut up in a sconce; to imprison; to insconce. [Obs.]
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            Immure him, sconce him, barricade him in 't.
                                                  --Marston.
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   2. To mulct; to fine. [Obs.] --Milton.
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Squinch \Squinch\ (skw[i^]nch), n. [Corrupted fr. sconce.]
   (Arch.)
   A small arch thrown across the corner of a square room to
   support a superimposed mass, as where an octagonal spire or
   drum rests upon a square tower; -- called also {sconce}, and
   {sconcheon}.
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103 Moby Thesaurus words for "sconce":
      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