terrace.

1. A level platform or open area, often raised beside a building or formed on a slope.

2. A row of adjoining houses built as a connected unit.

3. To form land or a slope into a series of level platforms.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• garden terrace
• river terrace

On the page

The garden terrace overlooked the lower path without enclosing it.

A narrow terrace interrupted the slope before the ground fell toward the river.

Usage notes

Primary category: architecture / spatial description. Forms: Noun singular terrace; plural terraces. Verb terrace; third-person terraces; past and participle terraced; present participle terracing. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings. Established modern English lexical item. No separate regional spelling or grammatical inflection entry. Writing functions: precise built-space description, structural component naming, spatial orientation, interior material description. Disciplines: fiction writing, architectural description, advanced descriptive English. Commonness: moderately common. Third-person singular: terraces.