2 meanings
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1 —as in:
buttress the defenses
Definition
make stronger or defensible- The report should buttress the White House case for immigration reform.
Other Uses (with this meaning)
- There is nothing like a newborn baby to renew your spirit - and to buttress your resolve to make the world a better place.Virginia Kelley
- I think I was glad to know it; I think I was glad to have my better impulses thus buttressed and guarded by the terrors of the scaffold.Robert Louis Stevenson -- Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
- The old adobe hall was buttressed along its outer walls with...Cormac McCarthy -- All the Pretty Horses
- buttress your thesis
- Those who invest in South Africa should not think they are doing us a favor; they are here for what they get out of our cheap and abundant labor, and they should know that they are buttressing one of the most vicious systems.Bishop Desmond Tutu
- I cradled him, his skull buttressed against mine and now wet with my tears.Abraham Verghese -- Cutting for Stone
- Westward, they widened into the sun, soaring up from buttressing shoulders.Thomas Wolfe -- Look Homeward, Angel
- But the warmth, the glow, evidently does not regard or need buttressing either; neither is it quenched by the actuality of an orange and eggs and toast.William Faulkner -- Light in August
- He hesitated, then he buttressed his courage with the thought that one did not doubt the good faith and the competence of railroad executives.Ayn Rand -- Atlas Shrugged
buttressed = strengthened
buttressed = made stronger or supported
2 —as in:
a flying buttress
Definition
an architectural feature that supports the wall of a building- The buttress wall supports the main wall while preserving an open feel in the house.
buttress = an architectural feature that supports the wall of a building
Other Uses (with this meaning)
- The stars are the great Gothic churches: spires, naves, delicate flying buttresses, massive conventional buttresses, stained glass and grandeur, grandeur, grandeur.John Corry
- His tracks led toward the east buttress of Denali, straight through a labyrinth of giant crevasses, evidence that he had made no apparent effort to circumvent obvious hazards.Jon Krakauer -- Into the Wild
- They behaved like people who do not want to be seen: lurking in shadow behind buttresses or in doorways,C.S. Lewis -- The Silver Chair
- he could see the arched buttresses of the cathedral domeCormac McCarthy -- All the Pretty Horses
- There was a soldier standing with his girl in the shadow of one of the stone buttresses ahead of usErnest Hemingway -- A Farewell to Arms
- no jutty, frieze, buttress,William Shakespeare -- Macbeth
- Out of the grove they pulled to the steep divide, which was no more than a buttress of Sonoma Mountain.London, Jack -- The Valley of the Moon
buttress = supporting structure
buttresses = an architectural feature that supports the wall of a building
buttresses = architectural features supporting the walls
buttresses = an architectural feature that supports the wall of a building
buttress = supporting structure