Joist
noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A piece of timber or steel laid horizontally, or nearly so, to which the planks of the floor, or the laths or furring strips of a ceiling, are nailed.
"[…] a Family was infected there, in so terrible a Manner that every one of the House died; the last Person lay dead on the Floor, and as it is supposed, had laid her self all along to die just before the Fire; the Fire, it seems had fallen from its Place, being of Wood, and had taken hold of the Boards and the Joists they lay on, and burnt as far as just to the Body, but had not taken hold of the dead Body […]"
- 2 beam used to support floors or roofs wordnet
- 1 To fit or furnish with joists. transitive
"The floors are joisted with sapling tree trunks, and the flooring itself is made of bark, split and pounded flat into strips. No attempt is made either to fasten or join the strips of flooring."
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"When fixing something to the ceiling, you should screw it into a joist for strength."
Etymology
From Old French giste, feminine of gist, the past participle of gesir (“to lie down”).
Related phrases
More for "joist"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.