Definify.com
Webster 1913 Edition
Entasis
‖
En′ta-sis
,Noun.
[NL., from Gr. [GREEK] a stretching; fr. [GREEK]; [GREEK] in + [GREEK] to extend.]
1.
(Arch.)
A slight convex swelling of the shaft of a column.
Definition 2024
entasis
entasis
See also: éntasis
English
Noun
entasis (plural entases)
- (architecture) A slight convex curvature introduced into the shaft of a column for aesthetic reasons, or to compensate for the illusion of concavity.
- 1859, Journal of the Society of Arts, Volume 7, page 484,
- 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.
- 1950, William Bell Dinsmoor, The Architecture of Ancient Greece: An Account of Its Historic Development, ISBN 0-8196-0283-3, page 168,
- 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.
- 1993, Noel W. Smith, Greek and Interbehavioral Psychology, page 125,
- 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.
- 2005, Lothar Haselberger, 4: Bending the Truth: Curvature and Other Refinements of the Parthenon, Jenifer Neils (editor), The Parthenon: From Antiquity to the Present, page 132,
- 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.
- 1859, Journal of the Society of Arts, Volume 7, page 484,
Translations
slight convex curvature in a column