Abacus: The flat slab on the top of a capital.
Acroteria: Statues or ornaments placed at the apex and the ends of pediments.
Adytum: 1. The inner sanctuary of a Greek temple, where oracles were delivered. 2. Any private sanctuary.
Arch: The spanning of an opening other than that of a lintel .
Architrave: The lintel extending from one column or pier to another.
Buttress: A mass of masonry or brickwork projecting from or built against a wall to give more strength.
Capital: The head or crowning feature of a column.
Colonnade: A row of columns carrying an entablature or arches.
Column: A free-standing, upright member of a circular section, usually for a support.
Dentil: A small square shape often repeated in a horizontal line.
Dome: A vault of even curvature on a circular base which can be segmental, semicircular, pointed, or bulbous.
Doric Order: The earliest of the Greek orders also adapted by the Romans.
Dormer window: A window placed vertically in a sloping roof and with a roof of its own.
Drum: A vertical wall supporting a dome; it may be circular, square, or polygonal.
Eaves: The underpart of an overhanging cornice or sloping roof.
Engaged column: A column attached to, or partly sunk into, a wall or pier
Eye: The center of a volute.
Facade: The front of face or a building, emphasized architecturally.
Finial: A formal ornament at the top of a canopy, or pinnacle.
Fluting: Shallow, concave grooves running vertically on the shaft of a column, pilaster, or other surface.
Frieze: The middle division of an entablature, between the architrave and the cornice, usually decorated but may be plain button right.
Gable: The triangular upper portion of a wall at the end of a pitched roof corresponding to a pediment in classical architecture.
Hypostyle: A hall or other large space over which the roof is supported by rows of columns like a forest.
Ionic Order: An order that originated in Asia Minor in the mid-sixth century B.C.
Jamb: The vertical face of an archway, doorway, or window.
Keystone: The central stone of a true arch of rib vault.
Lantern: A small circular or polygonal turret with windows all round, crowning a roof or a dome.
Lineaments: General term for the mouldings and other sculpted decorations of any architectural work.
Lintel: a horizontal beam or stone bridging an opening.
Metope: The square space between two triglyphs in the frieze of a Doric order; it may be carved or be left plain.
Mouldings: Decorative segments of carved and painted ornament: EGG and DART, BEAD and REEL, DENTIL, LILY & PALMETTA, OVOLO, LESBIAN, CYMA RECTA and CYMA REVERSA.
Niche: A vertical recess in a wall or pier, usually arched and containing a statue or urn
Obelisk A tall, tapering shaft of stone, usually monolithic, of square or rectangle section and ending pyramidally.
Oculus: A circular opening in a wall or at the apex of a dome.
Parapet: A low wall placed to protect any spot where there is a sudden drop.
Pediment: In classical architecture, a low-pitched, triangular gable above a portico. A pediment can also be a similar feature above doors and pictures.
Pendentive: A concave spandrel leading from the angle of two walls to the base of a circular dome; the structural means of support for a circular dome to rest on a square dome, a common Byzantine architecture.
Pier: A solid masonry support, as distinct from a column; the solid mass between doors, windows, and other openings in buildings.
Portal: A door or entrance.
Portico: A roofed space, open or partly enclosed, forming the entrance of the facade of a temple, house, or church, often with detached or attached columns and a pediment.
Posts: The main verticals of walls or doorways that support a lintel.
Pylon: In ancient Egyptian architecture, the rectangular, truncated, pyramidal towers flanking the gateway of the temple.
Pyramid: In ancient Egyptian architecture, a sepulchral monument in the form of a huge stone structure with a square base and sloping sides meeting at an apex.
Quoin: The stones at the corners of buildings, usually laid so that their faces are alternately large and small.
Rotunda: A building or room circular in plan and usually domed.
Roundel: A circular ornament, often decorated with sculptural reliefs or glazed terra-cotta.
Rustication: Masonry cut in massive blocks, sometimes in a crude state to give a rich and bold texture to an exterior wall.
Shaft: The trunk of a column between the base and the capital.
Spandrel: The triangular space between the side of an arch, the horizontal above its apex, and the vertical of it's springing; the surface between two arches in an arcade.
Spire: A tall, pyramidal, polygonal, or conical structure rising from a tower, turret, or roof (usually of a church) and terminating in a point.
Terra-cotta: Fired but unglazed clay, used mainly for wall or roof covering and ornamentation.
Tracery: The ornamental work in the upper part of a window, screen. or panel, or used decoratively in blank arches and vaults.
Triglyph: A block separating metopes in a Doric frieze; each has two vertical grooves (or glyphs) in the center and half grooves at the edges.
Turret: A very small, slender tower.
Tympanum: The area between the lintel of a doorway and the arch above it.
Vault: An arched ceiling or roof of stone, brick, or concrete.
Veranda: An open gallery or balcony with a roof supported by light supports.
Volute: A spiral scroll on an Ionic capital.
Voussoir: A brick or wedge-shaped stone forming one of the units or an arch.
