Definition of "buttress" []

• A structure, usually brick or stone, built against a wall for support or reinforcement. (noun)
• Something resembling a buttress, as: (noun)
• The flared base of certain tree trunks. (noun)
• A horny growth on the heel of a horse's hoof. (noun)
• Something that serves to support, prop, or reinforce: "The law is by its very nature a buttress of the status quo” ( J. William Fulbright). (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.

• "Salvini, a noted Italian democrat, was right on the mark when he observed: "The widespread ignorance of events is the main buttress of injustice"."
• "And when this policy seemed in danger of leading to regression as a result of electoral defeat, the commit ment to electoral (hence revisionist) activism was characterized as a buttress to the established theory of societal breakdown rather than as a major concession to revisionist ideology."
• "Close to this window, and rising up just above the sill of the clerestory windows, is a narrow, flat buttress, which is probably of the same date as the window."