🌼 A yellow flower 🏰 A five-lobed shape

cinquefoil

9.9

A decorative design of five connected rounded shapes in a circle, often in church windows

noun
/ˈsɪŋkˌfɔɪl/

Specialized

: cincohojas

The cinquefoil is beautiful.

Examples

You can find a cinquefoil motif repeated throughout the Gothic chapel's tracery.
Restorers carefully cleaned the stone cinquefoil above the entrance arch.
The cathedral's window features a beautiful cinquefoil at its apex.
Look at that stunning cinquefoil above the entrance!
The church's entrance featured a beautiful cinquefoil design above the wooden doors.
Architects often incorporate a cinquefoil motif into their Gothic revival buildings.
Visitors admired the intricate cinquefoil carvings adorning the cathedral's arches.

How Complex

rose window

1 8.2

tracery

Specialized

1 9.4

cinquefoil

Specialized

9.9

quatrefoil

Specialized

1 9.6

trefoil

Specialized

9.3

simple

220 1.0

Surface Forms

cinquefoil singular

cinquefoils plural

Morphology

cinquefoil = cinque + foil (opaque) = cinque + foil

The architectural/ornamental meaning is built from the same two elements, but both are nontransparent to average learners, so the design sense is not easily inferred.

Etymology

Cinquefoil comes from the same parts, cinque- 'five' and -foil 'leaf', and it names a five-part shape. Architects used a 'five-leaf' curve in windows and stone, so a cinquefoil is a decorative design with five petal-like parts.