Cantilever
noun, verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A beam anchored at one end and projecting into space, such as a long bracket projecting from a wall to support a balcony.
"Eventually Sir John Fowler's and Sir Benjamin Baker's continuous steel girder bridge on the cantilever principle was adopted."
- 2 projecting horizontal beam fixed at one end only wordnet
- 3 A beam anchored at one end and used as a lever within a microelectromechanical system.
"Magnetic resonance force microscopy employs an ultrasmall cantilever arm as a platform for specimens that are then moved in and out of proximity to a tiny magnet."
- 4 A technique, similar to the spread eagle, in which the skater travels along a deep edge with knees bent and bends their back backwards, parallel to the ice.
- 1 To project (something) in the manner of or by means of a cantilever.
"Just above, the museums top floor seems to shift slightly, its corners cantilevering over the edge of the story below as if it is sliding off the top of the building."
- 2 construct with girders and beams such that only one end is fixed wordnet
- 3 project as a cantilever wordnet
Example
More examples"Eventually Sir John Fowler's and Sir Benjamin Baker's continuous steel girder bridge on the cantilever principle was adopted."
Etymology
First attested in the 1660s, probably from cant (“slope, edge, corner”) + lever, but the earliest form (c. 1610) was cantlapper. First element may also be Spanish can (“dog”), an architect's term for an end of timber jutting out of a wall, on which beams rested.
Related phrases
More for "cantilever"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.