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A sconce is a light that lives on the wall. In old houses it held a candle, often with a little back plate so the flame did not mark the wall and some of the light bounced forward. In new houses it holds an electric bulb. You fix it to the wall: it is not a lamp that stands on a table, and it is not a hanging from the ceiling. Hotels, staircases, and living rooms often use them in pairs, one each side of a mirror or a painting. The word feels a bit like a design catalogue or an old-house tour. Though actually, a lot of people never say sconce at all — they just say “wall light.” Designers and hardware shops still use it as the proper name.
壁燈；舊式是壁掛燭台
組成From Middle English sconce / sconse, a candlestick or lantern with a screen, from Old French esconse, “lantern,” from Latin absconsus, “hidden,” from abscondō, “to hide.” The picture is a light that is partly covered or set back.
同家族的字
- abscondboth go back to Latin abscondō, to hide
原始詞典資料13 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
sconcenoun詞源 1/skɒns/
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A fixture for a light, which holds it and provides a screen against wind or against a naked flame or lightbulb.
- […]tapers put into lanterns or sconces of several-coloured, oiled paper, that the wind might not annoy them.
- Golden sconces hang not on the walls.
- 2
A fixture for a light, which holds it and provides a screen against wind or against a naked flame or lightbulb.
- Taking the candle […] she stood with the little flat brass sconce in her hand.
- This strange scene was lightd up by candles in high and havy brass sconces.
sconcenoun詞源 2/skɒns/
- 1
A head or a skull.
- Novv as I am a Chriſtian anſvver me, / In vvhat ſafe place you haue beſtovv'd my monie; / Or I ſhall breake that merrie ſconce of yours / That ſtands on tricks, vvhen I am vndiſpos'd: / VVhere is the thouſand Markes thou hadſt of me?
- Why does he suffer this rude knave now, to knock him about the sconce with a dirty shovel, and will not tell him of his action of battery?
- 2
A poll tax; a mulct or fine.
- I'll gladly pay a sconce
- 3
An act of sconcing; very similar to a fine at Cambridge University, though a sconce is the act of issuing a penalty rather than the penalty itself.
- .
- The table opposite started singing "shit sconce, shit scone^([sic]), shit sconce, shit sconce" […]
sconceverb詞源 2/skɒns/
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obsoleteTo impose a fine, a forfeit, or a mulct.
- The Rector sconced him in the buttery-book, but Webberly “wiped it off, with irreverent and unbeseeming language.” For this, he had to apologise, and go without his commons for three months.
- 2
During a meal or as part of a drinking game, to announce some (usually outrageous) deed such that anyone who has done it must drink; similar to I have never; commonly associated with crewdates; very similar to fining at Cambridge University.
- I sconce anyone who has ever…
sconcenoun詞源 3/skɒns/
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A type of small fort or other fortification, especially as built to defend a pass or ford.
- No sconce or fortress of his raising was ever known either to have been forced, or yielded up, or quitted.
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obsoleteA hut for protection and shelter; a stall.
- one that […] must raise a sconce by the highway and sell switches
- 3
architectureA squinch.
- 4
A fragment of a floe of ice.
- Just then, a broad sconce-piece or low water-washed berg came driving up from the southward. The thought flashed upon me of one of our escapes in Melville Bay; and as the sconce moved rapidly close alongside us, McGary managed to plant an anchor on its slope and hold on to it by a whale-line.
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A fixed seat or shelf.
sconceverb詞源 3/skɒns/
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obsoleteTo shut within a sconce; to imprison.
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。