Definition of "exedra" []

• A usually curved outdoor bench with a high back. (noun)
• An often semicircular portico with seats that was used in ancient Greece and Rome as a place for discussions. (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.

• "The "exedra" in the western bordering wall of the street."
• "Antonius chooses to compose his thoughts while walking in the portico. 111 Crassus, in contrast, retires to an exedra, where he devotes his midday respite to "the closest and most careful meditation.""
• "Along with the contemplative eddies in the medieval cathedral,30 intimate domestic settings modeled after the ancient Roman exedra and cubiculum — described by Vitruvius and Pliny and unearthed in the 1470s — provided prosthetic armatures for thought."