quoin.

1. A corner of a building or a stone or brick forming a conspicuous part of that corner.

2. A wedge or expanding device used to secure type or a printing form in a frame.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• stone quoins
• corner quoins

On the page

Stone quoins marked the building’s corners.

One quoin had cracked near the ground.

The facade’s quoins contrasted with the plaster.

Usage notes

Primary category: architecture. Forms: Singular quoin; plural quoins. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings.