Definition of "rose window" []

• A large circular window, usually glazed with stained glass, having stone tracery radiating from the center, often with intricate petallike patterns. (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.

• "That decorative panel, sometimes called a rose window or compass window, was only on the top floor, set into a dormer that broke up the roof line directly over the front door."
• "If his "Last Judgment" is a thrilling picture, it is because the memory of the glass-worker came to the aid of the painter, for the artist beheld heaven as the rose window of a cathedral (Dante, Parad., xxxi)."