What does cornice mean?
Word: Cornice
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: Cornice means a decorative border that runs around a room just below the ceiling, or along the top of an outside wall.
How do you spell cornice?
Syllables: cor - nice
Tricky part: The ending is the snag: it is spelt ice, though it sounds like the end of tennis.
Watch out for: cornis, cornise, corniss
Memory tip: A cornice decorates a room the way icing decorates a cake: finish it with ice.
Cornice in a sentence
Example 1: Painters spent two days touching up the white cornice in the dining room.
Example 2: Old buildings in Mumbai often have a carved cornice above the top-floor windows.
Example 3: Dad stood on a ladder to dust the plaster cornice above the bookshelves.
Fun Fact
English took the word through French from Italian. The Italian word is spelt exactly the same way, but there it has three syllables.
Practise the CREST Way
Word Cookie
Find the misspelt word in the sentence:
During the restoration of the old library, workers climbed the scaffolding to repair the plaster kornice that had cracked in the heavy monsoon rains of the previous year.
a) kornice
b) monsoon
c) scaffolding
d) restoration
Show answer
a) kornice. This word opens with a c, as corner does.
Word Cookie
Find the extra letter in the word:
corrnice
a) i
b) o
c) c
d) r
Show answer
d) r. Remove one r and the word is whole again.
Mingle-Mangle
The sentence contains a jumbled word. Choose the word it hides.
Rainwater dripped slowly from the broken neoricc above the palace gate.
a) corridor
b) cornea
c) coronet
d) cornice
Show answer
d) cornice. Two c letters appear among the jumbled letters, and just one option has a pair of them.
Spell-o-Spell
Only one word in the list is misspelt. Choose the meaning of that word.
1. eloquent 2. pristine 3. carnice 4. lucrative
a) speaking clearly and well
b) a shaped band near a ceiling
c) as clean as when it was new
d) earning a lot of money
Show answer
b) a shaped band near a ceiling. The vowel straight after the c should be an o, so carnice is the one slip here.
Multiple Choice Questions
1. A decorator is asked to repaint a cornice. What will she most likely need?
a) a pair of long waterproof boots
b) a small mat for kneeling on the floor
c) a strong torch for the dark cellar
d) a tall ladder or a raised platform
Show answer
d) a tall ladder or a raised platform
2. Why do builders add a cornice to a house?
a) to hold up the full weight of the roof
b) to give the top of a wall a finished look
c) to carry rainwater down to the drains
d) to let fresh air into the upper rooms
Show answer
b) to give the top of a wall a finished look
