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Vault   /vɔlt/   Listen
noun
Vault  n.  
1.
(Arch.) An arched structure of masonry, forming a ceiling or canopy. "The long-drawn aisle and fretted vault."
2.
An arched apartment; especially, a subterranean room, used for storing articles, for a prison, for interment, or the like; a cell; a cellar. "Charnel vaults." "The silent vaults of death." "To banish rats that haunt our vault."
3.
The canopy of heaven; the sky. "That heaven's vault should crack."
4.
A leap or bound. Specifically:
(a)
(Man.) The bound or leap of a horse; a curvet.
(b)
A leap by aid of the hands, or of a pole, springboard, or the like. Note: The l in this word was formerly often suppressed in pronunciation.
Barrel vault, Cradle vault, Cylindrical vault, or Wagon vault (Arch.), a kind of vault having two parallel abutments, and the same section or profile at all points. It may be rampant, as over a staircase (see Rampant vault, under Rampant), or curved in plan, as around the apse of a church.
Coved vault. (Arch.) See under 1st Cove, v. t.
Groined vault (Arch.), a vault having groins, that is, one in which different cylindrical surfaces intersect one another, as distinguished from a barrel, or wagon, vault.
Rampant vault. (Arch.) See under Rampant.
Ribbed vault (Arch.), a vault differing from others in having solid ribs which bear the weight of the vaulted surface. True Gothic vaults are of this character.
Vault light, a partly glazed plate inserted in a pavement or ceiling to admit light to a vault below.


verb
Vault  v. t.  (past & past part. vaulted; pres. part. vaulting)  
1.
To form with a vault, or to cover with a vault; to give the shape of an arch to; to arch; as, to vault a roof; to vault a passage to a court. "The shady arch that vaulted the broad green alley."
2.
To leap over; esp., to leap over by aid of the hands or a pole; as, to vault a fence. "I will vault credit, and affect high pleasures."


Vault  v. i.  
1.
To leap; to bound; to jump; to spring. "Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself." "Leaning on his lance, he vaulted on a tree." "Lucan vaulted upon Pegasus with all the heat and intrepidity of youth."
2.
To exhibit feats of tumbling or leaping; to tumble.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Vault" Quotes from Famous Books



... figure until it disappeared forever from his sight; and then he listened to his retreating footsteps until they grew faint and more faint, and all hope was lost! An hour of mortal agony went by; the sun sank slowly to rest, and a few stars brightened the sapphire vault above him. Suddenly a red glow brightened the heavens, and gilded the dark waters of the Rhine— that Rhine which he had so incarnadined with blood! Avenging God! It was the fire himself had kindled! It leaped up from every point of Speier—and now—now the cathedral ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... church; he found it open; notice of the arrival of the funeral had been given, and the vault in which the body was to be laid had been opened. The sexton, on seeing a well-dressed gentleman, whose object was to attend the expected obsequies, pacing the aisle of the church, hospitably invited him to share with him ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 1 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... history, it is mentioned, that a vault being opened in Spain, they found there Moors' heads, and some writings that did express, when people resembling those heads should come into Spain, they would conquer that country; and it was so. See this story more at ...
— Miscellanies upon Various Subjects • John Aubrey
... is in the tree But they are silent;—still they roll along Immeasurably distant; & the vault Built round by those white clouds, enormous clouds ...
— Mathilda • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
... debris when it was the throbbing metropolis of a world. The self-same moon that looks so peacefully down smiled on the midnight tryst in Nippur's scented groves or Babylon's hanging gardens; the same stars that now fret Heaven's black vault with astral fire winked and blinked 11,000 years ago while the sandaled feet of youth, on polished cedar floors, beat out the rhythmic passion of its blood. There too were the Heaven of requited love and the Hell of breaking hearts; there too were women beauteous as the dawn and ambitious ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann


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