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Buttress vs Shallow - What's the difference?

buttress | shallow |

As nouns the difference between buttress and shallow

is that buttress is a brick or stone structure built against another structure to support it while shallow is a shallow portion of an otherwise deep body of water.

As verbs the difference between buttress and shallow

is that buttress is to support something physically with, or as if with, a prop or buttress while shallow is to make or become less deep.

As an adjective shallow is

having little depth; significantly less deep than wide.

buttress

Noun

(es)
  • (architecture) A brick or stone structure built against another structure to support it.
  • Anything that serves to support something; a prop.
  • (botany) A buttress-root.
  • (climbing) A feature jutting prominently out from a mountain or rock; a crag, a bluff.
  • * 2005 , Will Cook, Until Darkness Disappears , page 54:
  • 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 caƱons and ominous buttresses .
  • * 2010 , Tony Howard, Treks and Climbs in Wadi Rum, Jordan , ISBN-13: 9781852842543, page 84:
  • Two short pitches up a chimney-crack are followed by a traverse right to the centre of the buttress .
  • (figurative) Anything that supports or strengthens.
  • * South
  • the ground pillar and buttress of the good old cause of nonconformity

    Derived terms

    * flying buttress

    Synonyms

    * counterfort

    See also

    * nunatak

    Verb

    (es)
  • To support something physically with, or as if with, a prop or buttress.
  • To support something or someone by supplying evidence; to corroborate or substantiate.
  • shallow

    English

    Adjective

    (er)
  • Having little depth; significantly less deep than wide.
  • This crater is relatively shallow .
    Saute the onions in a shallow pan.
  • Extending not far downward.
  • The water is shallow here.
  • Concerned mainly with superficial matters.
  • It was a glamorous but shallow lifestyle.
  • Lacking interest or substance.
  • The acting is good, but the characters are shallow .
  • Not intellectually deep; not penetrating deeply; simple; not wise or knowing.
  • shallow learning
  • * Francis Bacon
  • The king was neither so shallow , nor so ill advertised, as not to perceive the intention of the French king.
  • (obsolete) Not deep in tone.
  • * Francis Bacon
  • the sound perfecter and not so shallow and jarring
  • (tennis) Not far forward, close to the net
  • * {{quote-news
  • , year=2012 , date=June 28 , author=Jamie Jackson , title=Wimbledon 2012: Lukas Rosol shocked by miracle win over Rafael Nadal , work=the Guardian citation , page= , passage=Rosol spurned the chance to finish off a shallow second serve by spooning into the net, and a wild forehand took the set to 5-4, with the native of Prerov required to hold his serve for victory.}}

    Antonyms

    * deep

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A shallow portion of an otherwise deep body of water.
  • The ship ran aground in an unexpected shallow .
  • * Francis Bacon
  • A swift stream is not heard in the channel, but upon shallows of gravel.
  • * Dryden
  • dashed on the shallows of the moving sand
  • A fish, the rudd.
  • Usage notes

    * Usually used in the plural form.

    See also

    * shoal * sandbar * sandbank

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To make or become less deep
  • * {{quote-journal, 2009, date=February 6, Andrew Z. Krug et al., Signature of the End-Cretaceous Mass Extinction in the Modern Biota, Science citation
  • , passage=The shallowing of Cenozoic age-frequency curves from tropics to poles thus appears to reflect the decreasing probability for genera to reach and remain established in progressively higher latitudes ( 9 ). }}

    Anagrams

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