Lunette
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a term applied to various objects of a half-moon shape; as: Archæology, a crescent-shaped penannular concave plate of metal, apparently worn as an ornament about the neck. Architecture: (1) An arched aperture in the side of a long vault, and having a less height than the pitch. (2) A semicircular aperture in a concave ceiling. (3) An opening in the roof of a house. Farriery, a horseshoe having only the front, curved portion, lacking branches. Fortification, a half-moon; a detached work presen presenting a ward the enemy, and flanks open at the gorge. Optics: A perifocal spectacleglass; concavo-convex, its curve approximating the shape of the eye and affording more distinct oblique vision. Ordnance, a forked iron plate into which the stock of a field-gun carriage is inserted. LUNÉVILLE (lü-nā-vēl'), a town in the French department of Meurthe-et- Moselle, at the confluence of the Meurthe and the Vezouse, and 20 miles S. E. of Nancy; manufactures gloves, hosiery, cottons, etc. It was formerly a residence of the Dukes of Lorraine; their palace, built by Duke Leopold, and in which the Emperor Francis I. was born, is now used as a cavalry barrack, this town being one of the largest cavalry stations in France. Here was signed the peace of Lunéville, Feb. 9, 1801, between Germany and France, on the basis of the peace of Campo-Formio. The German army, in its sweep toward Paris in 1914, occupied Lunéville, but was forced to evacuate it on being pressed back after the Battle of the Marne. Pop. about 25,000.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Most of Collier's 1921 senses are still current: architects still call an arched or semicircular panel a lunette, and the word survives for the crescent window, the shoe without branches, and the ring-shaped towing coupling on trailers. Two of its uses have shifted. The "crescent-shaped penannular concave plate of metal" is now usually called a gold lunula and firmly dated to the Early Bronze Age, mostly Irish; and the fortification lunette, a live military form when the entry was written, has been obsolete since artillery outgrew earthworks, surviving only in preserved forts. On the Lunéville entry that follows, note that the 1801 peace was signed with Austria and the Holy Roman Empire rather than "Germany"; the ducal palace, a cavalry barracks in 1921, was gutted by fire in January 2003 and has been under long restoration since, and the town is now smaller than the 25,000 reported.
Written for this edition, 2026.