belvedere
(bɛlvɪˈdɪə(r))
Also 9–8 belvidere.
[a. It. belvedere ‘a faire sight, a place of a faire prospect,’ f. bel, bello, beautiful + vedere (inf. mood used subst.) a view, sight. The It. word was adopted in Fr. as early as 16th c. as belveder, belvédère, whence perhaps the Eng. pronunciation.]
1. Arch. A raised turret or lantern on the top of a house, or a summer-house erected on an eminence in a garden or pleasure-ground, for the purpose of viewing the surrounding scene.
| 1596 Bell Surv. Popery iii. ii. 213 Walking in his garden, or looking about him in his Bel-videre. 1623 Webster Devil's Law Case i. i, They build their palaces and belvederes With musical water-works. 1755 Hervey Dial. in Southey Comm.-pl. Bk. Ser. i. (1850) I. 314 Over this recess, so pleasingly horrid..arose an open and airy belvidere. 1834 Penny Cycl. II. 165/1 Apollo Belvedere, a celebrated statue of Apollo..placed by him [Pope Julius II] in the Belvidere of the Vatican, whence it derives its present name. 1873 Browning Red Cotton Night-Cap Country 148 What means this Belvedere? This Tower, stuck like a fool's-cap on the roof? |
2. Hort. A plant, Kochia scoparia (family Chenopodiaceæ), cultivated as an ornamental garden plant. Also called Summer Cypress, and Broom Toad-flax.
| 1597 Gerard Herbal iii. clxv. (1633) 556 This Belvidere, or Scoparia is the Osyris described by Dioscorides. 1725 Bradley Fam. Dict., Belvedere. 1797 C. Marshall Garden. (1805) 326 Belvidere, annual, summer or mock cypress. |