Library / English Dictionary |
ATTIC
Pronunciation (US): | (GB): |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
(architecture) a low wall at the top of the entablature; hides the roof
Classified under:
Nouns denoting man-made objects
Hypernyms ("attic" is a kind of...):
wall (an architectural partition with a height and length greater than its thickness; used to divide or enclose an area or to support another structure)
Domain category:
architecture (the discipline dealing with the principles of design and construction and ornamentation of fine buildings)
Holonyms ("attic" is a part of...):
entablature ((architecture) the structure consisting of the part of a classical temple above the columns between a capital and the roof)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Floor consisting of open space at the top of a house just below roof; often used for storage
Synonyms:
Classified under:
Nouns denoting man-made objects
Hypernyms ("attic" is a kind of...):
floor; level; storey; story (a structure consisting of a room or set of rooms at a single position along a vertical scale)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "attic"):
cockloft (a small loft or garret)
hayloft; haymow; mow (a loft in a barn where hay is stored)
Holonyms ("attic" is a part of...):
house (a dwelling that serves as living quarters for one or more families)
Sense 3
Meaning:
Informal terms for a human head
Synonyms:
attic; bean; bonce; dome; noggin; noodle
Classified under:
Hypernyms ("attic" is a kind of...):
human head (the head of a human being)
Sense 4
Meaning:
The dialect of Ancient Greek spoken and written in Attica and Athens and Ionia
Synonyms:
Attic; Classical Greek; Ionic; Ionic dialect
Classified under:
Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents
Hypernyms ("Attic" is a kind of...):
Ancient Greek (the Greek language prior to the Roman Empire)
Derivation:
Attic (of or relating to Attica or its inhabitants or to the dialect spoken in Athens in classical times)
II. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Of or relating to Attica or its inhabitants or to the dialect spoken in Athens in classical times
Example:
Attic Greek
Classified under:
Relational adjectives (pertainyms)
Pertainym:
Attica (the territory of Athens in ancient Greece where the Ionic dialect was spoken)
Derivation:
Attic (the dialect of Ancient Greek spoken and written in Attica and Athens and Ionia)
Context examples:
Mrs. Fairfax stayed behind a moment to fasten the trap-door; I, by drift of groping, found the outlet from the attic, and proceeded to descend the narrow garret staircase.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
I suppose, sister, you will put the child in the little white attic, near the old nurseries.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
Even the attic, which had been converted into my bedroom, was the most perfect little bijou attic that could possibly be imagined.
(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
There was one singular exception, however, for he had a single room, a lumber-room up among the attics, which was invariably locked, and which he would never permit either me or anyone else to enter.
(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Anybody may blame me who likes, when I add further, that, now and then, when I took a walk by myself in the grounds; when I went down to the gates and looked through them along the road; or when, while Adele played with her nurse, and Mrs. Fairfax made jellies in the storeroom, I climbed the three staircases, raised the trap-door of the attic, and having reached the leads, looked out afar over sequestered field and hill, and along dim sky-line—that then I longed for a power of vision which might overpass that limit; which might reach the busy world, towns, regions full of life I had heard of but never seen—that then I desired more of practical experience than I possessed; more of intercourse with my kind, of acquaintance with variety of character, than was here within my reach.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
The East room, as it had been called ever since Maria Bertram was sixteen, was now considered Fanny's, almost as decidedly as the white attic: the smallness of the one making the use of the other so evidently reasonable that the Miss Bertrams, with every superiority in their own apartments which their own sense of superiority could demand, were entirely approving it; and Mrs. Norris, having stipulated for there never being a fire in it on Fanny's account, was tolerably resigned to her having the use of what nobody else wanted, though the terms in which she sometimes spoke of the indulgence seemed to imply that it was the best room in the house.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
I left the breakfast-table, and as I ascended the stair I met him coming down with an old rusty key, which must have belonged to the attic, in one hand, and a small brass box, like a cashbox, in the other.
(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Georgiana sat on a high stool, dressing her hair at the glass, and interweaving her curls with artificial flowers and faded feathers, of which she had found a store in a drawer in the attic.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
The little white attic, which had continued her sleeping-room ever since her first entering the family, proving incompetent to suggest any reply, she had recourse, as soon as she was dressed, to another apartment more spacious and more meet for walking about in and thinking, and of which she had now for some time been almost equally mistress.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
Well, he said, I say now, as I said then, that a man should keep his little brain-attic stocked with all the furniture that he is likely to use, and the rest he can put away in the lumber-room of his library, where he can get it if he wants it.
(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)