Also 7–9 strutt. [Proximate origin obscure; from the root of STRUT sb.1, b.1 Cf. LG. strutt, rigid.]
1. A bar, rod, or built-up member, of wood, iron, etc., designed to resist pressure or thrust in a framework; e.g., a diagonal timber that acts as a brace to support a principal rafter.
1587. Mascall, Bk. Cattle, II. (1596), 120. Preparing the cart…. See the rath staues and struts be whole and sound.
1668. Leybourn, Platf. Purchasers, 132. K King-piece or Joggle-piece. L Strutts.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, III. 450/1. Struts, or Bunspars, pieces that go from either side the Kings piece to the Rafter of the Gable end to support them.
1755. Hales, Distillation, in Phil. Trans., XLIX. 314. Three or four small struts may be fixed to the sides of the air-box.
1845. Civil Engin. & Arch. Jrnl., VIII. 213/1. Mr. Adie introduced a series of arches or struts, traversing the railway at intervals of 15 feet from centre to centre. These struts consisted of two arches of rubble and rough ashlar masonry, placed back to back.
1854. Miss Baker, Northampt. Gloss., Strut, a pole or stick, with a spike at the end, to be let down from the shaft of a cart, to keep the weight off the horse’s back when standing still with a heavy load.
1859. Newton’s Lond. Jrnl. Arts, 1 Feb., 114. A short iron strut or link is jointed to the thin end of each tongue-rail and to the end chair.
1879. Cassell’s Techn. Educ., I. 107/2. Beyond that opening, however, bridges are usually sustained by struts or tension-rods.
1886. Encycl. Brit., XXI. 819/2. The beam is required to act as a shore or strut, to prevent the sides of the ship from collapsing, and also as a tie to prevent their falling apart.
b. attrib., as strut-brace, † -stower; strut-beam = strutting-beam (see STRUTTING vbl. sb.2 c).
1668. Leybourn, Platf. Purchasers, 132. Of the Roof … Coller-beam, Strutt-beam, Window-beam, or Top-beam.
17[?]. in F. Peck, Mem. O. Cromwell, etc. II. (1740), 58. [Alleged covenant of A.D. 1159] He shall deliver to you … ten stakes, eleven strut stowers & eleven yeathers, to be cut by you.
1869. Rankine, Machine & Hand-tools, App. 26. The most efficient position for those ribs would be diagonal, like that of the strut-braces in a skeleton beam.
¶ 2. The alleged sense in quot. 1865 and subsequent Dicts. ‘An implement of bone or wood formerly used to shape the folds of ruffs’ is founded on quot. 1575, where stroout appears to be for strouted pa. pple. of strout, STRUT v.1 (sense 2 c).
1575. Laneham, Lett., 47. Hiz shyrt … with rufs fayr starched,… marshalld in good order: with a setting stik, & stroout yt euery ruf stood vp like a wafer.
1865. Mrs. Bury Palliser, Hist. Lace, xxiii. 286. The tools used in starching and fluting ruffs were called setting-sticks, struts, and poking-sticks; the two first were made of wood or bone.
