corbel

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English corbel, also corbeil and corbyl,^[2] borrowed from Old French corbel (“raven; architectural corbel”),^{[3][4][5][6][7]} now French corbeau,^[3][7] a diminutive of corp (“raven”), also corb,^[4][7][8][9] from Latin corvus (“raven”).^[4][5][8][9] The OED instead derives the Old French word from Late Latin corvellum, nominative corvellus, a diminutive of the same Latin noun.^[3][10] The Anglo-Norman noun is recorded from 1174–75, and its senses include both the bird and the building term.^[11] The OED notes that the architectural use began in French, and reports Hatzfeld's view that the corbel was originally cut slantwise, giving it a beak-like profile;^[3] Etymonline and the American Heritage Dictionary state the beak comparison as fact,^[4][9] and Barnhart and the Oxford Dictionary of English as probable or possible.^[5][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

A stone bracket on a wall, first in the compound corbeiltable: the Sacrist Rolls of Ely for 1360 buy "xxvj ped. de corbeiltables".^[2][5] The simple word for the bracket follows in 1428, on a stone for "þe corbel of þe rode lofte",^[2][5] and the OED's first record of it is the Promptorium Parvulorum, about 1440.^[3] Etymonline gives the mid 14th century, and Merriam-Webster the 15th century.^[4][8]

Semantic evolution

Middle English also had the word in its original sense of raven, in Cleanness and in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, where þe corbeles fee is the part of a killed deer left for the ravens;^[2][3] the sense did not outlive the period.^[6] The building term widened to any projection of stone, brick, timber or iron carrying a weight,^[3] and in 1679 came to include a short timber laid under a beam to shorten its span.^[3][6] Dictionaries then confused the word with others: Johnson (1755) defines it as the image of a basket on the heads of caryatides,^[13] the OED notes its use for French corbeille,^[3] and Webster (1828) repeats the basket and adds "a niche or hollow left in walls",^[14] a sense the OED calls entirely baseless.^[3] Skeat keeps it apart from corbeil, a basket of earth.^[15] The verb is much later, a conversion of the noun.^[3]

Timeline

• 1360 – corbeiltables, corbel stones.^[2][5]
• c. 1400 – raven, in corbeles fee (now obsolete).^[3][2]
• 1426 – corbelstonys, corbel stones.^[2]
• 1428 – a bracket projecting from a wall.^[2][5]
• 1433 – corbyl table, a course of corbels.^[2]
• mid 16th century – corbelling, corbels collectively.^[6]
• 1679 – a short timber under a beam.^[3]
• 1819 – corbel-step.^[4]
• 1843 – verb, to furnish with or make into a corbel.^[8] The OED dates its verb, to support on corbels, to 1859.^[3]
• 1861 – verb, intransitive, to project on corbels.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A bracket of stone, brick, timber or the like, projecting from the face of a wall to support a weight, often stepped upward and outward.^[16][8][3]
2. A short timber laid lengthwise under a beam to give it a better bearing on its support.^[3][6]
3. (obsolete) A raven.^[3][2][6]

Verb

1. To furnish with or support on corbels, or to lay stone or brick so that it forms a corbel; often with out.^[16][8][3]
2. To project on corbels, or upward and outward like a stepped corbel: The upper storey corbels out over the lane.^[8][3]

Word family

• corbeling
• corbel table

Related words

• corbel arch
• corvine
• corbie

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
10. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
11. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
12. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ Webster, Noah (1828), An American Dictionary of the English Language, New York: S. Converse
15. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
16. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins