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—cuspal, adj./kusp/, n.1. a point or pointed end.2. Anat., Zool., Bot. a point, projection, or elevation, as on the crown of a tooth.4. Archit. a decorative device, used esp. in Gothic architecture to vary the outlines of intradoses or to form architectural foils, consisting of a pair of curves tangent to the real or imaginary line defining the area decorated and meeting at a point within the area.5. Astron. a point of a crescent, esp. of the moon.6. Astrol.a. the zodiacal degree that marks the beginning of a house or a sign.b. Informal. a person born on the first day of a sign.7. a point that marks the beginning of a change: on the cusp of a new era.[1575-85; < L cuspis a point]
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In architecture, the intersection of lobed or scalloped forms, particularly in arches (cusped arches) and tracery.Thus the three lobes of a trefoil (cloverleaf form) are separated by three cusps. Cusped forms appear in early Islamic work and were especially common in the Moorish architecture of North Africa and Spain. The form was adopted wholeheartedly by European Gothic architecture.* * *
in architecture, the intersections of lobed or scalloped forms, particularly in arches (cusped arches) and in tracery. Thus the three lobes of a trefoil (cloverleaf form) are separated by three cusps. Cusped forms appear commonly in early Islamic work, as in the Mosque of Aḥmad ibn Ṭūlūn at Cairo (c. 879), and were especially common in the Moorish architecture of North Africa and Spain. The cusp is found occasionally in the French Romanesque style, as in the chapel of Saint-Michel-d'Aiguilhe, Le Puy-en-Velay, France (10th–11th century), where its occurrence may be due to influence from Spain. The form did not become popular in Europe until the Gothic period, during which builders used the cusp universally and frequently enriched it with representations of leaves, flowers, or even human heads at the tip.* * *
Universalium. 2010.
