Forms: see the sb.; also 7 pa. pple. terassed. [f. TERRACE sb., or a. F. terrasser (16th c. in Godef., Compl.).]
1. trans. To form into a terrace or raised bank; to fashion or arrange in terraces. Also to terrace up. (Chiefly in passive until 19th c.; cf. next.)
1650. Fuller, Pisgah, III. ii. § 5. The ascent … was … terrased on both sides with Pillasters made of … Almuggin trees.
1682. Wheler, Journ. Greece, I. 13. The Walls also being well Terrassed.
1827. Keble, Chr. Y., 3rd Sund. Advent. Mountains terrass’d high with mossy stone.
1848. Mill, Pol. Econ., II. viii. § 3. The plots, terrassed up one above another, are often not above four feet wide.
1880. Miss Bird, Japan, I. 85. Fields formed by terracing sloping ground.
1895. Westm. Gaz., 7 Oct., 2/2. The Kusi River in Bengal … brings down enormous quantities of silt,… making fertile plains, terracing the land, changing its bed, destroying forests.
† 2. To furnish with a ‘terrace’ or balcony; to provide (a house) with a loggia or terrace-roof. (Chiefly in passive: cf. next.) Obs.
1615. G. Sandys, Trav., I. 31. [Minarets] tarrast aloft on the out side like the maine top of a ship.
1624. Wotton, Archit. in Reliq. (1651), 260. Which [light] we must now supply … by Tarrasing any Story which is in danger of darknesse.
1631. Heywood, London’s Jus Hon., Wks. 1874, IV. 276. A faire and curious structure archt and Tarrest aboue.
1634. Sir T. Herbert, Trav., 49. The houses … are flat and tarrased atop.
3. intr. (nonce-use.) To rise in terraces (in quot., used of ranges of houses).
1900. Speaker, 29 Dec., 342/1. Pink and white and blue tenements … terrace recklessly above each other from the river to the sky-line.
