Forms: 7 balcone, -ona, -onia, -onie, -onee, belcony, -ey, bellcony, -ey, 7– balcony. [a. It. balcōne (= F., Pr., Sp. balcon, Pg. balcão), formed with augmentative suffix -one from It. balco, palco, scaffold, a. OHG. balcho, palcho (= mod.G. balken, Eng. balk) a beam.]
1. A kind of platform projecting from the wall of a house or room, supported by pillars, brackets, or consoles, and enclosed by a balustrade.
1618. Holyday, Juvenal, 223. It was properly a balcone, and so the building it self did jetty out.
1633. G. Herbert, World, ii. in Temple, 76. Then Pleasure came, who liking not the fashion, Began to make Balcones, Terraces.
1640. Brome, Sparagus Gard., III. iv. 159. Squinting up at Windowes and Belconies.
1727. Swift, Tom Clinch, Misc. (1735), V. 145. The Maids to the Doors and the Balconies ran, And said, lack-a-day! he’s a proper young Man.
1783. Cowper, Gilpin, 142. At Edmonton his loving wife From the balcony spied Her tender husband.
1817. Byron, Beppo, xi. And like so many Venuses of Titian’s They look when leaning over the balcony, Or stepp’d from out a picture by Giorgione.
1832. Tennyson, Mariana in S., viii. Backward the lattice-blind she flung, and lean’d upon the balcony.
1845. Browning, Fl. Duchess, § 15. 505. To breathe the fresh air from the Balcony.
fig. 1650. B., Discolliminium, 2. First to the Title … Next to the Belcony or Preamble.
2. The similar structure at the stern of large ships.
1666. Pepys, Diary (1879), IV. 143. A very good ship, but with galleries quite round the sterne like a balcone.
c. 1850. Rudim. Nav. (Weale), 94. Balcony, the gallery in the stern of large ships.
3. In theaters: † a. formerly, A stage-box. b. now, (generally) The open part above the dress circle, between that and the ‘gallery.’ In Music Halls and other public buildings, variously applied, according to structure.
1718. Rem. Rochester, 106. Fairly in public he plays out his Game, Betimes bespeaks Balconies.
1883. Harper’s Mag., Nov., 882/2. The three tiers of boxes and the balcony of which the auditorium consists.
4. attrib., as in balcony-chamber, -door, -window.
1635. Althorp MS., in Simpkinson, Washingtons, Introd. 70. Tymber for the balconia doores.
1636. Laud, in 4th Rep. Com. Hist. MSS. (1874), 153/2. A balconee window and a staircase.
1800. Coleridge, Piccolomini, I. vi. Why was the balcony-chamber countermanded?
