Arch. Also 8 sirbace. [f. SUR- + BASE sb.1]
a. A border or molding immediately above the base or lower panelling of a wainscoted room; also, = chair-rail (CHAIR sb.1 15).
1678. Moxon, Mech. Exerc., vi. 106. The Middle Rail hath commonly two bredths of the Margent of the Stile, viz. one breadth above the Sur-base, and the other below the Surbase.
1744. Langhorne, Country Justice, I. Poems (1790), 282. Where, round the hall, the oak’s high surbase rears The field-day triumphs of two hundred years.
1760. Phil. Trans., LI. 798. From the top of the surbase within to the pavement of the cell is 7 feet.
1791. Oxf. Archd. Papers, Ms. Oxon. b. 26, lf. 177 b (Bodl. Libr.). Neat Chimney piece … suitable Hearthstone … with a Sirbace and Skirting.
1834. M. Scott, Cruise Midge, xviii. The whole of the surbases and wooden work about the windows and doors were of well-polished and solid mahogany.
1871. Miss Braddon, Lovels of Arden, xxxii. As her severe eyes surveyed wall and ceiling, floor and surbase.
1875. Encycl. Brit., II. 474/1. Surbase..., an upper base is the term applied to what, in the fittings of a room, is familiarly called the chair-rail.
1880. Cassell’s Fam. Mag., 112. The height of the surbase or chair-rail.
attrib. 1825. J. Nicholson, Operat. Mechanic, 605. Surbase-moulding.
b. A cornice or series of moldings above the dado of a pedestal, podium, etc.
1815. J. Smith, Panorama Sci. & Art, I. 171. Each upper portion, as surbase of pedestal, capital of column, cornice of entablature, divides into three parts.
1837. Civil Engin. & Arch. Jrnl., I. 352/2. The cornice or surbase of the pedestal on which the statue of the Duke is placed.
1887. Times (weekly ed.), Dec., 15/1. The temple rests on a stylobate, having a finely moulded base and surbase.
attrib. 1845. Parker, Gloss. Archit. (ed. 4), s.v. Pedestal, The cornice, or surbase mouldings, at the top [of a pedestal].
