cantilever

Definition

A beam anchored at one end and projecting into space, such as a long bracket projecting from a wall to support a balcony.

Etymology

First attested in the 1660s, probably from cant (“slope, edge, corner”) + lever, but the earliest form (c. 1610) was cantlapper. First element may also be Spanish can (“dog”), an architect's term for an end of timber jutting out of a wall, on which beams rested.

Example Sentences

• "Eventually Sir John Fowler's and Sir Benjamin Baker's continuous steel girder bridge on the cantilever principle was adopted."
• "He loved Litchfield, Sharon, Williamsburg; he preferred the Georgian, and he had theories about developing a truly American style. He was called a plodder by all the Kivis, and in turn he disliked their bleak blocks of Modernist cement, their glass-fronted hen-houses, their architectural spiders with cantilever claws."
• "The underframe, which has been designed to take buffing loads of 200 tons both on the centre coupler and on the retractable side buffers, consists of two centre girders from which cantilevers project to support the solebars, which in turn carry the bodyside structure."