cribed above. (3) The profile of a moulding.

SET-OFF.--A small ledge formed by diminishing the thickness
of a wall or pier.

SEXPARTITE VAULTING.--Where each bay or compartment is
divided by its main ribs into six portions.

SGRAFFITO (Italian).--An ornament produced by scratching
lines on the plastered face of a building so as to show a
different colour filling up the lines or surfaces scratched
away.

SHAFT.--(1) The middle part of a column between its base and
capital. (2) In Gothic, slender columns introduced for
ornamental purposes, singly or in clusters.

SHELL ORNAMENT.--A decoration frequently employed in Italian
and French Renaissance, and resembling the interior of a
shell.

SKY-LINE.--The outline which a building will show against
the sky.

SPANDREL.--The triangular (or other shaped) space between
the outside of an arch and the mouldings, or surfaces
inclosing it or in contact with it. (See Fig. _S_, under
Diaper.)

SPIRE.--The steep and pointed roof of a tower (usually a
church tower).

SPIRE-LIGHT (or LUCARNE).--A dormer window (which see) in a
spire.

SPLAY.--A slope making with the face of a wall an angle less
than a right angle.

STAGE.--One division in the height of any building or
portion of a building where horizontal divisions are
distinctly marked, _e.g._, the belfry stage of a tower, the
division in which the bells are hung.

STEEPLE.--A tower and spire in combination. Sometimes
applied to a tower or spire separately.

STEPPED GABLE.--A gable in which, instead of a sloping line,
the outline is formed by a series of steps.

STILTED ARCH.--An arch of which the curve does not commence
till above the level of the impost (which see).

STORY.--(1) The portion of a building between one floor and
the next; (2) any stage or decidedly marked horizontal
compartment of a building, even if not corresponding to an
actual story marked by a floor.

STRAP-WORK (Elizabethan).--An ornament representing
strap-like fillets interlaced.

STRING-COURSE.--A projecting horizontal (or occasionally
sloping) band or line of mouldings.

TABERNACLE WORK.--The richly ornamented and carved work with
which the smaller and more precious features of a church,
_e.g._, the fittings of a choir, were adorned and made