[f. ABUT v. + -MENT. Cf. OFr. aboutement, ‘borne, limite, extrémité qui confine avec une autre.’ Godefroi.]
1. The meeting end to end; the place where projecting ends meet each other; junction.
1644. Evelyn, Mem. (1857), I. 118. The four fountains of Lepidus, built at the abutments of four stately ways.
1674. N. Fairfax, Bulk & Selv., 26. Two rooms cannot be within one abutment, unless they be thereby clapt into one.
2. The action of abutting, or terminating upon.
1870. Rolleston, An. Life, 43. Separated into a lumbar and a sacral division, by the abutment of the iliac bones upon the vertebrae.
3. Arch. The solid part of a pier or wall, etc., against which an arch abuts, or from which it immediately springs, acting as a support to the thrust or lateral pressure. In a bridge, the masonry (or rock) at either end supporting the arches.
1793. Smeaton, Edystone Lightho., § 274. The sloping abutments of an arch [now skewback].
1823. Nicholson, Pract. Builder, 328. In masonry, the abutments of a bridge mean the walls adjoining to the land.
1879. Building Constr., in Cassell’s Techn. Educ., I. 197. Piers imply supports which receive vertical pressure, whilst abutments are such as resist outward thrust.
4. By extension, That upon which anything abuts or leans, or from which it receives firm support.
a. 1734. North, Examen, II. v. § 81. 365. The whole Scheme and Abutment of the rebellious Project was founded upon them.
1793. Holcroft, Lavater’s Physiog., ix. 54. I have generally considered the Nose as the foundation or abutment of the brain.
1850. Merivale, Hist. Rom. Emp. (1865), VIII. lxiii. 30. The no less rugged abutments of the northern spurs of the Balkans.
1860. Tyndall, Glaciers, I. § 25. 187. Long clear icicles, tapering from their abutments.
1873. Mivart, Elem. Anat., ii. 64. Its [the sternum’s] human condition of serving as a ventral abutment to ribs though general is not constant.
