Sconce
November 23rd 2007 14:58
I wanted to check out the meaning of sconce online, and came across Dr Johnson’s dictionary, which has the following meaning:
Sconce. A fort, a bulwark, a fortification. The head. Perhaps as being the acropolis or citadel of the body. A pensile candlestick, generally with a looking-glass to reflect the light.
Who would think these days of called a fort a sconce? And it never helps, I find, when a dictionary definition introduces another word you don’t understand. It sends you off on a search that may take all day.
Pensile, anyway, means hanging loosely, or suspended. These days, if it’s used at all, it relates to nest hanging from trees, or lights hanging from walls.
When I was in Lichfield, a couple of months ago, I discovered that the famous Dr Johnson had come from there, and was one of Lichfield’s honoured sons. There’s a statue of him (seated, with his back to the statue of Boswell) in the market square. His statue is facing his childhood home, a three or four-storey building that’s now the home of the Samuel Johnson Museum. It’s a house with a very narrow stairway that must have been a pain to use, and the flooring doesn’t seem to have been repaired since Johnson’s day. It’s very squeaky.
The whole place seems narrowly built, with perhaps only a couple of rooms per floor. No wonder people in those days were fit; although obviously when Johnson moved away and stopped climbing the stairs all the time, he managed to put on a bit of weight!
Sconce. A fort, a bulwark, a fortification. The head. Perhaps as being the acropolis or citadel of the body. A pensile candlestick, generally with a looking-glass to reflect the light.
Who would think these days of called a fort a sconce? And it never helps, I find, when a dictionary definition introduces another word you don’t understand. It sends you off on a search that may take all day.
Pensile, anyway, means hanging loosely, or suspended. These days, if it’s used at all, it relates to nest hanging from trees, or lights hanging from walls.
When I was in Lichfield, a couple of months ago, I discovered that the famous Dr Johnson had come from there, and was one of Lichfield’s honoured sons. There’s a statue of him (seated, with his back to the statue of Boswell) in the market square. His statue is facing his childhood home, a three or four-storey building that’s now the home of the Samuel Johnson Museum. It’s a house with a very narrow stairway that must have been a pain to use, and the flooring doesn’t seem to have been repaired since Johnson’s day. It’s very squeaky.
The whole place seems narrowly built, with perhaps only a couple of rooms per floor. No wonder people in those days were fit; although obviously when Johnson moved away and stopped climbing the stairs all the time, he managed to put on a bit of weight!
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