Meaning of entasis | Babel Free

Definitions

A slight convex curvature introduced into the shaft of a column for aesthetic reasons, or to compensate for the illusion of concavity.

countable, uncountable

Equivalents

Examples

“It was simply the curve of the entasis, approximating infinitely near to a catenary or to a very flat hyperbola. He could not definitely say whether it was one or the other, but it was nearer to these curves than to the old-fashioned straight line.”

“The entasis varies in different temples and is not found in some, as, for instance, the temple of Athena Nike and in the east portico of the Erechtheum.”

“Entasis occurred a thousand years earlier in the Sarsen stones at Stonehenge in southern England.[…]Entasis is also present in Egyptian obelisks and in the vertical fins of the radiator grill of the Rolls-Royce automobile.”

“Counter to the increased entases of the pronaos and opisthodomos columns, the adjacent anta pillars and longitudinal cella walls received extraordinarily decreased entases that almost, or even fully, reached rectilinearity.”

CEFR level