Word Finder - roofs

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The external covering at the top of a building.

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The roof was blown off by the tornado.

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The top external level of a building.

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Let's go up to the roof.

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The upper part of a cavity.

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The palate is the roof of the mouth.

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The surface or bed of rock immediately overlying a bed of coal or a flat vein.

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(rockclimbing) An overhanging rock wall

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To cover or furnish with a roof.

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To traverse buildings by walking or climbing across their roofs.

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To put into prison, to bird.

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To shelter as if under a roof.

The houses are built of clay with (generally) flat roofs impervious to fire.

He could see the clear starry sky between the dark roofs of two penthouses.

Moonlight spilled over triangular roofs into grassy front yards.

The roofs are laid out as gardens and preserved for the exclusive use of the women.

Simple roofs in general use with a double slope are the " coupled rafter roofs," the rafters meeting at the highest point upon a horizontal ridge-piece which stiffens the framework and gives a level ridge-line.

In the chief towns houses are built of mud bricks with flat roofs.

But here was a fairy forest with black moving shadows, and a glitter of diamonds and a flight of marble steps and the silver roofs of fairy buildings and the shrill yells of some animals.

Nearly all the stucco-fronted brick houses, with flat roofs and cornices and wide spreading stoeps, of the early Dutch settlers have been replaced by shops, warehouses and offices in styles common to English towns.

Such roofs are not suitable for cold climates, for accumulations of snow might overburden the structure and would also cause the wet to penetrate through any small crevices and under flashings.

The famous Venetian pozzi, or wells for storing rain-water from the roofs and streets, consisted of a closed basin with a water-tight stratum of clay at the bottom, upon which a slab of stone was laid; a brick shaft of radiating bricks laid in a permeable jointing material of clay and sand was then built.

The roofs were thatched with bark, straw, reeds or rushes.

Occasionally curly tongues of flame rose from under the roofs of the houses.

The houses, mostly white with coloured roofs, are generally built of wood and iron, and have glazed porches, gay with fuchsias and pelargoniums. Government House, grey, stone-built and slated, calls to mind a manse in Shetland or Orkney.

Few crowded neighbourhoods are visible, and the characteristic features of the scene which meets the eye are the upturned roofs of temples, palaces, and mansions, gay with blue, green and yellow glazed tiles, glittering among the groves of trees with which the city abounds.

With flat roofs the pressure exerted upon the supports is directly vertical.

At some distance from the shaft a square water-tight wall was built, and the space between it and the shaft was filled in with sand, which was purified of all saline matter by repeated washings; on the ground-level perforated stones set at the four corners of the basin admitted the rain-water, which was discharged from the roofs by lead pipes; this water filtered through the sand and percolated into the shaft of the well, whence it was drawn in copper buckets.

These constitute the winter residence of the family, reception rooms, &c. The roofs of the houses are all flat, surrounded by parapets of sufficient height to protect them from the observation of the dwellers opposite, and separate them from their neighbours.

In the summer the population sleeps and dines upon the roofs, which thus constitute to all intents a third storey.

Several of the bazaars are vaulted over with brickwork, but the greater number are merely covered with flat beams which support roofs of dried leaves or branches of trees and grass.

This accident generally arises from an improper size of pillars; some roofs, however, are so difficult to support that sits take place where the half of the coal is left in pillars.

On the former occasion little was left uncovered but the roofs of the houses.

The advantage claimed for roofs formed with one or two large spans is that they permit the platforms and tracks to be readily rearranged at any time as required, whereas this is difficult with the other type, especially since the British Board of Trade requires the pillars to be not less than 6 ft.

The tiles of these roofs are glazed porcelain of the most exquisite deep-blue colour, and add a conspicuous element of splendour to the shrine.

The custom of dwelling, for part of the day at least, in booths, is still kept up by orthodox Jews, who have temporary huts covered with branches erected in their courtyards, and those who are not in possession of a house with a backyard often go to pathetic extremes in order to fulfil the law by making holes in roofs, across which branches are placed.

A few old Turkish houses, built of plaster, with red-tiled roofs, are left among the ill-paved and insanitary districts bordering upon the rivers, but as the royal residence, the seat of government, and the centre of the import trade, Belgrade was, after 1869, III.

It serves for the thatching of roofs, for a papermaking material, for ornamenting small surfaces as a "strawmosaic," for plaiting into door and table mats, mattresses, &c., and for weaving and plaiting into light baskets, artificial flowers, &c. These applications, however, are insignificant in comparison with the place occupied by straw as a raw material for the straw bonnets and hats worn by both sexes.

Electric and compressed air locomotives are durable, easily operated, and can be built to run under the low roofs of thin veins.

High-pitched red tiled roofs take the place of the flat roofs of the coast.

During this century the first sumptuary edict ordered that the dwellings of all high officials and opulent civilians should have tiled roofs and be colored red, the latter injunction being evidently intended to stop the use of logs carrying their bark.

Massive, towering roofs, which impart an air of stateliness even to a wooden building and yet, by their graceful curves, avoid any suggestion of ponderosity, were still confined to Buddhist edifices.

It would seem that only the immense weight of the roofs and their heavy projections prevent a collapse of some of these structures in high winds.

Its houses are generally built of wood, with high roofs and wide verandahs shaded by cocoanut or cabbage palms. The principal buildings are the court house, in the centre of the town, government house, at the southern end, Fort George, towards the north, the British bank of Honduras, the hospital, the Roman Catholic convent, and the Wesleyan church, which is the largest and handsomest of all.

In ascending the river a stranger's eye is first caught by the numerous huge ice-houses with high thatched roofs and by a tall white tower - the T'ien-feng-t'a or Ning-po pagoda or obelisk - which rises to a height of 160 ft.

Private houses were also provided with flat roofs (azoteas) and battlements, which gave them great defensive strength, as well as a cool, secluded retreat for their inmates in the evening.

The walls survive, indeed, only in isolated fragments, but the narrow winding streets of the older part of the town, and the market-place surrounded by houses with high-pitched gables and roofs are very picturesque.

The well-preserved amphitheatre, the subterranean parts of which below the arena are intact, with a main passage down the centre, a curved passage all round with holes for trap doors in its roof, and numerous small chambers, also with trap doors in their vaulted roofs for admitting the wild beasts, whose cages were on the other side of the curved passage, to the arena, are especially interesting.

The villages of the Guajiros in the Gulf of Maracaibo are described by Goering as composed of houses with low sloping roofs perched on lofty piles and connected with each other by bridges of planks.

For an enumeration of these sizes, see Roofs, where also will be found an account of the different varieties of slates and of the ways in which they are fixed.

Of these the most noteworthy are the Taranchi and Dungan mosques, both with turned-up roofs, and the latter with a pagoda-looking minaret.

It is a picturesque town, the houses having the overhanging wooden roofs of Switzerland united with the heavy stone arcades of Italy, while the situation is beautiful, with the lake in front and the semicircle of bold mountains behind.

The roofs throughout are of open woodwork very low in pitch, constructionally plain, but richly decorated with colour, now mostly restored.

Its design was that of a Jerusalem cross, with two flanking towers at the east end, two at the west end, and one in the centre, at the intersection of the roofs of the nave and transepts.

By order of the privy council the lead was stripped off the roofs in 1567 and sold to Holland to pay the troops; but the ship conveying the spoils foundered in the North Sea.

The prospect of the city with its cupolas, towers, spires and the copper green roofs of its palaces, as seen from the distance, is one of striking beauty.

Modern Hebron rises on the east slope of a shallow valley - a long narrow town of stone houses, the flat roofs having small stone domes.

Inside the ramparts the town lies rather cramped, with narrow, crooked streets, badly drained and dirty; the houses are generally built of dark grey volcanic stone with flat roofs, the general aspect, owing to the absence of trees, being somewhat gloomy.

The buildings of the old town are chiefly of brick, from four to five storeys in height, with flat roofs, and other oriental peculiarities; while in the new town hewn stone is very largely employed, and the architecture is often of a modern English style.

These huts are sometimes made simply of straw and are surrounded by high thorn hedges, but, in the north, square houses, built in stories, flat-roofed, the roof sometimes laid at the same slope as the hillside, and some with pitched thatched roofs, are common.

From the cave we have advanced to roofs of palm leaves, of bark and boughs, of linen woven and stretched, of grass and straw, of boards and shingles, of stones and tiles.

Above the dirty, ill-lit streets, above the black roofs, stretched the dark starry sky.