☼ Concept Map

''cupola'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

↩ 🔳 🔳 🔳

Primary

⁀➴

''cupola'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260717141042-00-⌔

cupola - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

🖼️ ➺ 🖼️ ➺

Noun

cupola (plural cupolas or cupolae)

  • (architecture) A dome -shaped ornamental structure located on top of a larger roof or dome.
    • ✤ the light falling dimly through the foggy cupola.1
    • ✤ The stations on the City & South London were small but pretty, with cupolas to accommodate the winding gear of the small and claustrophobic hydraulic lifts.2
  • (military, railroad) A small turret, usually on a hatch of an armoured fighting vehicle.
  • (geology) An upward-projecting mass of plutonic rock extending from a larger batholith.
  • (geometry) A solid formed by joining two polygons, one (the base) with twice as many edges as the other, by an alternating band of isosceles triangles and rectangles.
  • A type of furnace used for smelting.
    • ✤ The cupola has a small cylindrical chimney-like bore that is lined with a refractory material.3
    • ✤ Cast iron produced in a cupola possesses the following advantages: The cost of melting is low. The control of chemical composition is better. Temperature control is easier. Molten metals can be tapped from the cupola at regular intervals.4
  • (anatomy) A small cap over a structure that is shaped like a dome or inverted cup.
    • ✤ the posterior cupola of the cartilaginous nasal capsule
    • ✤ From each anterior cupola there projects forwards the processus prenasalis lateralis inferior.5
    • ✤ The cupola of the lung is mostly medial and posterior to the vein as it begins to course deeper into the thorax (Fig. 5.7).6
  • (railways, Canada, dated) a small viewing window in the top of the caboose for looking over the train, or the part of the caboose where one looks through this window.
  • A body of members of the Sicilian Mafia who make decisions and settle disputes.

Etymology

Borrowed from Italian cupola, from Latin cūpula (“little tub”); from Latin cūpa, cuppa (“cup”); named for its resemblance to a cup turned over.7 Doublet of cupula.

Pronunciation

  • (UK, US) IPA: /ˈkjuːpələ/
  • Audio (Southern England): 🔊
  • (US) IPA: /ˈkupələ/
  • (US, dialectal) IPA: /ˈkjupəloʊ/(see cupalo)

Printed 2026-07-17.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

  1. 1886, Robert Louis Stephenson, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde: ↩

  2. 2012, Andrew Martin, Underground Overground: A passenger’s history of the Tube, Profile Books, →ISBN, page 101: ↩

  3. 2008, Matthew Stein, When Technology Fails, →ISBN: ↩

  4. 2009, S.K. Garg, Comprehensive Workshop Technology, →ISBN, page 260: ↩

  5. 1937, Sir Gavin De Beer, The Development of the Vertebrate Skull, page 180: ↩

  6. 2015, Charles E. Smith, Trauma Anesthesia, →ISBN, page 85: ↩

  7. “cupola”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC. ↩

Link to original

Secondary

• • •