sconce Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun a shelter or screen providing protection from enemy fire or from the weather
  2. noun a small fort or earthwork defending a ford, pass, or castle gate
  3. noun a candle or flaming torch secured in a sconce
  4. noun a decorative wall bracket for holding candles or other sources of light

WordNet

Sconce noun
Etymology
D. schans, OD. schantse, perhaps from OF. esconse a hiding place, akin to esconser to hide, L. absconsus, p. p. of abscondere. See Abscond, and cf. Ensconce, Sconce a candlestick.
Definitions
  1. A fortification, or work for defense; a fort.
    No sconce or fortress of his raising was ever known either to have been forced, or yielded up, or quitted. Milton.
  2. A hut for protection and shelter; a stall.
    One that . . . must raise a sconce by the highway and sell switches. Beau. & Fl.
  3. A piece of armor for the head; headpiece; helmet.
    I must get a sconce for my head. Shak.
  4. Fig.: The head; the skull; also, brains; sense; discretion. Colloq.
    To knock him about the sconce with a dirty shovel. Shak.
  5. A poll tax; a mulct or fine. Johnson.
  6. OF. esconse a dark lantern, properly, a hiding place. See Etymol. above. A protection for a light; a lantern or cased support for a candle; hence, a fixed hanging or projecting candlestick.
    Tapers put into lanterns or sconces of several-colored, oiled paper, that the wind might not annoy them. Evelyn.
    Golden sconces hang not on the walls. Dryden.
  7. Hence, the circular tube, with a brim, in a candlestick, into which the candle is inserted.
  8. (Arch.) A squinch.
  9. A fragment of a floe of ice. Kane.
  10. Perhaps a different word. A fixed seat or shelf. Prov. Eng.
Sconce transitive verb
Wordforms
imperfect & past participle Sconced ; present participle & verbal noun Sconcing
Definitions
  1. To shut up in a sconce; to imprison; to insconce. Obs.
    Immure him, sconce him, barricade him in 't. Marston.
  2. To mulct; to fine. Obs. Milton.

Webster 1913