An arch is a structure that spans a space and supports a load. Arches appeared as early as the 2nd millennium BC in Mesopotamian brick architecture and their systematic use started with the Ancient Romans who were the first to apply the technique to a wide range of structures.
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Famous quotes containing the word arch:
“Dark accurate plunger down the successive knell
Of arch on arch, where ogives burst a red
Reverberance of hail upon the dead
Thunder like an exploding crucible!”
—Allen Tate (18991979)
“Thir dread commander: he above the rest
In shape and gesture proudly eminent
Stood like a Towr; his form had yet not lost
All her Original brightness, nor appeard
Less than Arch Angel ruind, and th excess
Of Glory obscurd: As when the Sun new risn
Looks through the Horizontal misty Air
Shorn of his Beams, or from behind the Moon
In dim Eclips disastrous twilight sheds
On half the Nations, and with fear of change
Perplexes Monarchs.”
—John Milton (16081674)
“Concords little arch does not span all our fate, nor is what transpires under it law for the universe.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)