opus spicatum en · NOUN
Etymology
Borrowed from Latin opus spīcātum (literally “spiked work”), from the resemblance to the interlocking patterns of grain spikes.
Meanings
-
(Ancient-Rome, uncountable) Herringbone masonry.
One sees in it a pediment in the Empire style on a Jesuit portico; it has rusticated galleries, colonnades like those of the Louvre, Renaissance staircases, Gothic halls, and a Roman crypt. If one were to expose the foundations, one would come upon opus spicatum and Roman cement.
1910, M. P. Willcocks, transl., chapter VI, in Frederic Chapman, editor, The Wicker Work Woman: A Chronicle of Our Own Times, translation of Le Mannequin d'osier by Anatole France: