1. One of the stones forming the quoin or salient angle of a wall, a quoin-stone.
1382. Wyclif, Job xxxviii. 6. Who dide doun the corner ston of it?
1557. North, trans. Gueuara’s Diall Pr., 55 a/1. The corner stone that lyeth on the toppe.
1597. Hooker, Eccl. Pol., IV. lxxi. § 2. That first-laid corner-stone in Zerrubabels buildings.
1607. Shaks., Cor., V. iv. 2. See you yond Coin a’th’ Capitol, yon’d corner stone?
1724. Watts, Logic, IV. ii. Rule 1 The largest and fairest building sinks … to the ground, if the foundations and corner-stones of it are feeble and insufficient.
1862. Rickman, Styles Archit., 63. The quoins or corner stones are arranged in a peculiar manner.
1870. F. Wilson, Ch. Lindisf., 94. The rest of the work, beyond these strong reliable corner-stones, is almost as rough as rubble.
b. fig. (esp. in reference to its function in consolidating the building.)
a. 1300. Cursor M., 19155 (Cott.). Jesu … þat es mad als a quarner stan For to mak tuin folk an.
1382. Wyclif, Eph. ii. 20. Aboue bildid on the foundement of apostlis and of prophetis, bi that hiȝeste corner stoon, Crist Jhesu.
1768–74. Tucker, Lt. Nat. (1852), I. 513. A trust in God is the grand corner stone of all religion.
1803. Syd. Smith, Wks. (1859), I. 32/2. The high price of labour is the very corner-stone on which the prosperity of a new colony depends.
1875. Jowett, Plato (ed. 2), IV. 30. Why should we make an ambiguous word the corner-stone of moral philosophy?
† 2. The coving of a fire-place. Obs.
1703. T. N., City & C. Purchaser, 118. Corner-stones … Are 2 Stones … of which there stands one in each Jamb of a Chimney. Their Faces are hollow in the breadth, being a certain Sweep of a Circle…. Their heighth reaches from the Hearth to the Mantle-tree.
