masonry

views updated Jun 11 2018

masonry.
1. Art, craft, and practice of building with natural or artificial stone, involving its quarrying, cutting, dressing, jointing, and laying.

2. Work produced by a mason, such as an ashlar wall, stone dressings, and the like. Types of masonry include:ashlar: stone cut and dressed to accurate shapes with right-angled corners, laid in true courses with mortar on flat beds, and with fine joints, carefully bonded;cyclopean: 1. any polygonal masonry, but especially masonry of large irregularly shaped stones; 2. rusticated masonry dressed to appear it is naturally rough rock-faced work straight from the quarry;rubble: stonework of undressed or roughly dressed stones including coursed rubble (stones laid in courses, so requiring some preparation to ensure that joints are horizontal and stones properly bedded), dry-stone (rough stones laid without mortar), random rubble (very rough stones, uncoursed), and squared rubble (stones cut roughly to have verticals at right angles to the horizontals);rusticated: masonry laid with joints exaggerated by chamfering, etc., the surface projecting beyond the joints. See rustication.

3. Brickwork or any load-bearing structure such as blockwork, but the term is not recommended in this sense.

4. With a capital M (see freemason (4)).

masonry

views updated May 14 2018

ma·son·ry / ˈmāsənrē/ • n. 1. stonework. ∎  the work of a mason.2. (Masonry) Freemasonry.