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Definition of "modillion" [mo•dil•lion]

  • An ornamental bracket used in series under a cornice, especially a cornice of the Corinthian, Composite, or Ionic orders. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "modillion" in a sentence
  • "Over the arched window behind the ten Melchisedec pulpits, and just beneath the vertical modillion which forms the keystone of the ornamental wooden arch, is the text, "Holiness unto the Lord.""
  • "Her raven-black hair, copious both in length and volume and figured like a deep river, rippled by the wind, was parted in the centre and combed smoothly down, ornamenting her pink temples with a flowing tracery that passed round to its modillion windings on a graceful crown."
  • "Though the first designers of the modillion were probably Greeks, it must, nevertheless, be taken as really a Roman device, worthily completing the essentially Roman Corinthian order."
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