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ashlar

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English

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The Palazzo Medici Riccardi in Florence, Italy, with a facade showing ashlar work at the top and two varieties of rusticated stone below.

Alternative forms

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Etymology

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From Middle English assheler, acheler, etc., from forms of Old French esselier (“wooden support, traverse beam”), from Medieval Latin ascelāris and assellāris (equivalent to a diminutive of early forms of ais (“plank”)), variant of *axillāris (attested only after the Renaissance), from Latin axilla (“little plank”) + -āris (“-ary: forming adjectives”), from axis (“axle, plank”) + -illa (“-ella: forming diminutives”).

Pronunciation

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Noun

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ashlar (countable and uncountable, plural ashlars)

  1. (architecture) Masonry employing flat and well-squared stone or brick, creating an appearance similar to wooden flooring.
    • 1949 November and December, “Notes and News: The High Level Bridge, Newcastle”, in Railway Magazine, page 407:
      The four main spans across the waterway are carried on ashlar piers founded on Memel timber piles.
    • 1973, Kyril Bonfiglioli, Don't Point That Thing at Me, Penguin, published 2001, page 108:
      Even as I babbled, Jock's massy frame filled the doorway, his ill-hewn ashlar head weaving from side to side, eyes blinking at the light.
    • 2012, Seth G. Bernard, “Continuing the Deabte on Rome's Earliest Circuit Walls”, in Papers of the British School at Rome, number 80, page 2:
      By the Augustan period, however, the old ashlar circuit with its earthen agger was beginning to be dismantled in some places.
    • 2024 March 6, Dr Joseph Brennan, “England's booking offices of distinction”, in RAIL, number 1004, page 59:
      The building, in a plain Tudor Gothic style, has a central door in chamfered ashlar surround.
  2. (architecture) Stone hewn and finished to create such masonry, either completely or as a facade over an earthen or rubble core.
    • 1970, Rosemary Sutcliff, The Witch`s Brat, Red Fox, published 1990, page 83:
      And from the choir itself, where the big hoist was working, came the shouts of the men sweating at the great wheel that swung the cut stones skyward, and the men high overhead on the hurdle-walks, waiting to receive the swinging ashlars and guide them into place.
  3. (military, historical) A stone intended for hurling via a catapult or similar device.

Derived terms

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Translations

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Anagrams

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