Also 5 boterace, boterase, 6 butteras, 7 buttresse. [f. BUTTRESS sb.1]
1. To furnish, sustain or strengthen with a buttress or support.
1377. [cf. b.].
1530. Palsgr., 473/1. This buylding is butterassed very wel.
1843. Carlyle, Past & Pr., II. iii. (1872), 49. Stately masonries … buttress it.
1886. Athenæum, 30 Oct., 574/1. The walls were buttressed with pillars.
b. fig. Also with up.
1377. Langl., P. Pl., B. V. 598. Þe wallis ben … Boterased [A. VI. 79 brutaget] with bileue-so-or-þow-beest-nouȝte-ysaued.
1611. Speed, Hist. Gt. Brit., IX. xx. (1632), 960. Arguments concurring to buttresse this affirmation.
1769. Burke, Corr. (1844), I. 174. The plan of the court, would be … to buttress it [the ministry] up with the Grenvilles.
1849. Caroline Fox, Mem. Old Friends (1882), II. xv. 115. Some of the facts concerning America … buttressed their arguments capitally.
2. To conceal by a buttress from. rare.
1820. Keats, St. Agnes, ix. Beside the portal doors, Buttress’d from moonlight, stands he.
Hence Buttressing vbl. sb. and ppl. a.
1851. Ruskin, Stones Ven., I. xv. § 11. The tiny buttressings look as if they carried the superstructure on the points of their pinnacles.
1881. Fifeshire Jrnl., 13 Jan., 4/3. Mr. Gladstone and … his buttressing factions.
