buttress

plural buttresses · alternative buttrice

1. architectureA brick, concrete or stone structure built against another structure to support it.

   It was decided, therefore, to build eight concrete buttresses from the new strengthening work to safeguard the general stability of the wall along the length where the greatest movement had taken place.

   1954 June, “Strengthening of River Calder Retaining Wall, N.E.R.”, in Railway Magazine, page 429

   Synonyms: counterfort, brace

2. broadlyAnything that serves to support something; a prop.
3. biologyA buttress root.
4. climbingA feature jutting prominently out from a mountain or rock.

   Crowell Buttresses, Dismal Buttress

   2 more examples

   All that day they rode into broken land. The prairie with its grass and rolling hills was behind them, and they entered a sparse, dry, rocky country, full of draws and short cañons and ominous buttresses.

   2005, Will Cook, Until Darkness Disappears, page 54

   Two short pitches up a chimney-crack are followed by a traverse right to the centre of the buttress.

   2010, Tony Howard, Treks and Climbs in Wadi Rum, Jordan, →ISBN, page 84

   Synonyms: crag, bluff

5. figurativelyAnything that supports or strengthens.

   the grand pillar and buttress of the good old cause of nonconformity

   1692 October 30, Robert South, A Further Account of the Nature and Measures of Conscience

present singular third person buttresses · participle present buttressing · participle past buttressed · past buttressed · alternative buttrice

1. To support something physically with, or as if with, a prop or buttress.
2. broadlyfigurativelyTo support something or someone by supplying evidence.

   1 more example

   Buttressed by elaborate account statements and a deep reservoir of trust from his investors and regulators, Mr. Madoff steered his fraud scheme safely through a severe recession in the early 1990s, a global financial crisis in 1998 and the anxious aftermath of the terrorist attacks in September 2001.

   2021 April 14, Diana B. Henriques, “Bernard Madoff, Architect of Largest Ponzi Scheme in History, Is Dead at 82”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

   Synonyms: corroborate, substantiate