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Glite Dictionary
🌸 A woodland plant 🏛️ A stone decoration 🦷 A pointed tooth
dogtooth

dogtooth

9.9
A small carved pyramid shape that decorates stone arches and edges
  • noun
  • Archaic
translation icon : diente de perro
  • The restoration included replacing several missing dogtooth carvings from the original design.

Examples

  • The architect chose a dogtooth design for the new building.

  • In medieval architecture, dogtooth patterns were quite popular.

  • Historians studied the intricate dogtooth pattern above the cathedral's entrance.

  • The archway was adorned with a row of carved dogtooth ornaments.

  • The intricate design of the dogtooth ornament added a unique charm to the cathedral's arches.

  • In the restoration project, they carefully recreated the dogtooth moldings to maintain historical accuracy.

  • The dogtooth pattern on the stonework was a popular architectural feature in 13th-century England.

Antonyms

plain
208 1.0

Simple and not decorated or flavored

unadorned
6 5.1

Plain in appearance with no decoration

Compounds

dogtooth violet
1 9.3

A small woodland plant with early spring flowers and broad leaves

European dogtooth
  • UK
9.9

A small European lily plant that is grown in gardens and has pale pink to mauve flowers

white dogtooth violet
  • US
9.9

A North American woodland plant with one white flower and a yellow center

Surface Forms

dogtooth singular
dogtooths plural

Morphology

dogtooth = dog + tooth (semi-transparent) = dog + tooth

The term names an ornament that resembles a pointed tooth; the shape relation is clear but the specialized architectural sense may not be obvious to all learners.

Etymology

Dogtooth comes from the simple image of the small pointed carvings that look like a dog's tooth, so medieval builders used the name for the sharp, tooth-like decoration in arches and moldings.