sconce — English Dictionary

Noun

1. A fixture for a light, which holds it and provides a screen against wind or against a naked flame or lightbulb.

   Examples

   […]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.

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   There wasn't a room that had not been clad, picture-railed, dadoed, panelled, stained, gilded, bordered and generally made over to within an inch of its life - can I interest anyone in a gold cherubic sconce?

2. A fixture for a light, which holds it and provides a screen against wind or against a naked flame or lightbulb. A candlestick (holder for a candle, especially a circular tube, with a brim, into which a candle is inserted), either with a handle for carrying, or with a bracket for attaching to a wall.

   Examples

   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.

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   Also the candles flickering in the blood-red sconces are black and the body on the crucifix is that of a full-breasted woman.

Noun

1. A head or a skull.

   Examples

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   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?

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   Long time this sconce a helmet wore, / But sickness smites the conscience sore; / He broke his sword, and hither bore / His gear and plunder, / Took to the cowl,—then rav’d and swore / At his damn’d blunder!

   […] roll the rider and his horse in the dust, or endeavour to drive their lance through the bars of the visor into the bull's eye of their friend's sconce, […]

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   […]; an old blue jacket, that at one time had been a coat, looped over a red plush “singlet” of perhaps twenty or even forty years' wear : his almost hairless sconce bared to the sun, from which it had received an imperishable coating of tan, he was an object that few would pass without hailing with observations,[…] he wiped his shining sconce [...] and raised his visor […]

2. A poll tax; a mulct or fine.

   Examples

   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).

   Synonyms

   sconcingfine

   Examples

   Near-synonym: (Cambridge University slang) fine

   The table opposite started singing "shit sconce, shit scone^([sic]), shit sconce, shit sconce" […]

Verb

1. To impose a fine, a forfeit, or a mulct.

   Usage

   • Obsolete

   Examples

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   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).

   Synonyms

   fine

   Examples

   Near-synonym: (Cambridge University slang) fine

   I sconce anyone who has ever…

Noun

1. A type of small fort or other fortification, especially as built to defend a pass or ford.

   Examples

   No sconce or fortress of his raising was ever known either to have been forced, or yielded up, or quitted.

2. A hut for protection and shelter; a stall.

   Usage

   • Obsolete

   Examples

   one that […] must raise a sconce by the highway and sell switches

3. A squinch.

4. A fragment of a floe of ice.

   Examples

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   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.

5. A fixed seat or shelf.

Verb

1. To shut within a sconce; to imprison.

   Usage

   • Obsolete

Noun

1. a shelter or screen providing protection from enemy fire or from the weather

   Broader terms

   shelter

2. a small fort or earthwork defending a ford, pass, or castle gate

   Broader terms

   earthworkfortressfort

3. a candle or flaming torch secured in a sconce

   Broader terms

   lightlight source

4. a decorative wall bracket for holding candles or other sources of light

   Broader terms

   bracketwall bracket