Dictionary

cantilever en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• audio Colorado
• /ˈkantɪliːvə/ (UK)
• (Southern-England) audio
• [ˈkɛəntɪˌlivɚ] (Canada, General-American)
• /ˈkæntɪˌlivɚ/ (Canada, General-American)

Etymology

First attested in the 1660s, probably from cant (“slope, edge, corner”) + lever, but the earliest form (c. 1610) was cantlapper. First element may also be Spanish can (“dog”), an architect's term for an end of timber jutting out of a wall, on which beams rested.

Meanings

1. A beam anchored at one end and projecting into space, such as a long bracket projecting from a wall to support a balcony.
   • The underframe, which has been designed to take buffing loads of 200 tons both on the centre coupler and on the retractable side buffers, consists of two centre girders from which cantilevers project to support the solebars, which in turn carry the bodyside structure. 1951 May, “British Railways Standard Coaches”, in Railway Magazine, page 327:
   • He loved Litchfield, Sharon, Williamsburg; he preferred the Georgian, and he had theories about developing a truly American style. He was called a plodder by all the Kivis, and in turn he disliked their bleak blocks of Modernist cement, their glass-fronted hen-houses, their architectural spiders with cantilever claws. 1951, Sinclair Lewis, World So Wide, Chapter:
   • Eventually Sir John Fowler's and Sir Benjamin Baker's continuous steel girder bridge on the cantilever principle was adopted. 1941 January, the late John Phillimore, “The Forth Bridge 1890-1940”, in Railway Magazine, page 5:
   • The service stairs were next to the main stairs, separated only by a wall, but what a difference there was between them: the narrow back stairs, dangerously unrailed, under the bleak gleam of a skylight, each step worn down to a steep hollow, turned tightly in a deep grey shaft; whereas the great main sweep, a miracle of cantilevers, dividing and joining again, was hung with the portraits of prince-bishops, and had ears of corn in its wrought-iron banisters that trembled to the tread. 2004, Alan Hollinghurst, chapter 10, in The Line of Beauty […], London: Picador, →ISBN:
   • The plank along which pirates made their victims walk was a cantilever. So is a diving board. As you walk along the plank, the unsupported ends dips ^([sic]). It's possible to arrange for two cantilevers to be connected at their unsupported ends, which would let you seamlessly cross from one cantilever to the other while also distributing your weight across both fixed ends. 2023 May 3, Philip Haigh, “The art and science of building bridges”, in RAIL, number 982, page 40:
   • cantilever arch cantilever arm cantilever armchair cantilever beam cantilever bracket cantilever brake cantilever bridge cantilever crane cantilever fin cantilever frame cantilever girder cantilever landing gear cantilever moment cantilever monoplane cantilever mounting cantilever roof cantilever roof bar cantilever sheet-piles cantilever single-strut landing gear cantilever span cantilever spring cantilever timbering cantilever tower crane cantilever truss cantilever-type drilling mast cantilever wall cantilever wing
2. A beam anchored at one end and projecting into space, such as a long bracket projecting from a wall to support a balcony. ▸ A beam anchored at one end and used as a lever within a microelectromechanical system.
   • cantilever circuit
   • Magnetic resonance force microscopy employs an ultrasmall cantilever arm as a platform for specimens that are then moved in and out of proximity to a tiny magnet. 2009 January 13, John Markoff, “A Breakthrough in Imaging: Seeing a Virus in Three Dimensions”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 06 Sep 2019:
3. (qualifier:figure skating) A technique, similar to the spread eagle, in which the skater travels along a deep edge with knees bent and bends their back backwards, parallel to the ice.

Forms

Deriveds

cantilever bra · nanocantilever · cantileverage · microcantilever · piezocantilever · cantilever chair · cantileverable

Translations (34)

hu egyoldalt befogott tartó (beam anchored at one end and projecting into space) · ru консо́льная ба́лка (beam anchored at one end and projecting into space) · hu konzolos/kiugró tartó/támasz (beam anchored at one end and projecting into space) · ca coll fals (beam anchored at one end and projecting into space) · ca mènsula (beam anchored at one end and projecting into space) · de Kragarm (beam anchored at one end and projecting into space) · fi ulokepalkki (beam anchored at one end and projecting into space) · ro grindă în consolă (beam anchored at one end and projecting into space) · cmn 懸臂 /悬臂 (beam anchored at one end and projecting into space) · hu konzol (beam anchored at one end and projecting into space) · no utkraging (beam anchored at one end and projecting into space) · no utligger (beam anchored at one end and projecting into space) · de Auskragung (beam anchored at one end and projecting into space) · et konsool (beam anchored at one end and projecting into space) · ru уко́сина (beam anchored at one end and projecting into space) · pt em balanço (beam anchored at one end and projecting into space) · ca voladís (beam anchored at one end and projecting into space) · de Ausleger (beam anchored at one end and projecting into space) · fr porte-à-faux (beam anchored at one end and projecting into space) · it mensola (beam anchored at one end and projecting into space) · es voladizo (beam anchored at one end and projecting into space) · no utstikker (beam anchored at one end and projecting into space) · hu konzoltartó (beam anchored at one end and projecting into space) · pl wspornik (beam anchored at one end and projecting into space) · no utkravning (beam anchored at one end and projecting into space) · bg конзола (beam anchored at one end and projecting into space) · ru кро́нштейн (beam anchored at one end and projecting into space) · hu tartókar (beam anchored at one end and projecting into space) · de Kragträger (beam anchored at one end and projecting into space) · ko 캔틸레버 (beam anchored at one end and projecting into space) · ru консо́ль (beam anchored at one end and projecting into space) · cs konzola (beam anchored at one end and projecting into space) · cmn 懸臂樑 /悬臂梁 (beam anchored at one end and projecting into space) · cs krakorec (beam anchored at one end and projecting into space)

cantilever en · VERB

Pronunciation

• audio Colorado
• /ˈkantɪliːvə/ (UK)
• (Southern-England) audio
• [ˈkɛəntɪˌlivɚ] (Canada, General-American)
• /ˈkæntɪˌlivɚ/ (Canada, General-American)

Etymology

First attested in the 1660s, probably from cant (“slope, edge, corner”) + lever, but the earliest form (c. 1610) was cantlapper. First element may also be Spanish can (“dog”), an architect's term for an end of timber jutting out of a wall, on which beams rested.

Meanings

1. To project (something) in the manner of or by means of a cantilever.
   • Just above, the museums top floor seems to shift slightly, its corners cantilevering over the edge of the story below as if it is sliding off the top of the building. 2007 October 28, Nicolai Ouroussoff, “Where Gods Yearn for Long-Lost Treasures”, in New York Times:

Forms