In England, a tall needle spire was sometimes constructed at the edge of tower, with pinnacles at the other corners. The spires of the late 13th century achieved great height one example was Fribourg Cathedral in Switzerland, where the gabled lantern and spire reached a height of 385 feet (117 meters). Additional vertical ornament, in the form of slender pinnacles in pyramid shapes, were often placed around the spires, to express the transition between the square base and the octagonal spire. In the 12th and 13th centuries, more ornament was added to the faces of the spires, particularly gabled dormers over the centres of the faces of the towers, as in the southwest tower of Chartres Cathedral. Triangular sections of masonry, called broaches were added to the sides, at an angle to the faces of the tower, as at St Columba, Cologne. Gradually, spires became taller, slimmer, and more complex in form. The spire could be constructed of masonry, as at Salisbury Cathedral, or of wood covered with lead, as at Notre-Dame de Paris. The Gothic church spire originated in the 12th century as a simple, four-sided pyramidal structure on top of a church tower. The Flamboyant Gothic North Tower (finished 1513) (left) and older South Tower (1144–1150) (right) This sense of the word spire is attested in English since the 1590s, spir having been used in Middle Low German since the 14th century, a form related to the Old English word spir, meaning a sprout, shoot, or stalk of grass. Small or short spires are known as spikes, spirelets, or flèches. The former solution is known as a broach spire. Since towers supporting spires are usually square, square-plan spires emerge directly from the tower's walls, but octagonal spires either called for a pyramidal transition section called a broach at the spire's base, or else freed spaces around the tower's summit for decorative elements like pinnacles. Spires are typically built of stonework or brickwork, or else of timber structure with metal cladding, ceramic tiling, shingles, or slates on the exterior. A spire may have a square, circular, or polygonal plan, with a roughly conical or pyramidal shape. In 1999, they regilded the spire of the Shwedagon Pagoda, which now glitters with 53 tons of gold and 4,341 diamonds on the crowning orb.Spire of Salisbury Cathedral (completed 1320) (404 feet (123 metres), with tower and spire)Ī spire is a tall, slender, pointed structure on top of a roof or tower, especially at the summit of church steeples.His own reluctant namesake, Mount Beckey, rises some 8,500 feet in a largely uncharted subrange near the Cathedral Spires of southeastern Alaska.To grow upwards rather than develop horizontally.Of a seed, plant etc.: to sprout, to send forth the early shoots of growth to germinate.Verb SG spires PR spiring PT, PP spired +.
Definition of spire in English Dictionary
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