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wainscot

Other forms: wainscots

Wainscot is a type of wood paneling on a room's walls. Wainscot is often made from oak.

This word's meaning is hard to figure out from looking at it, but the wains part is from a Dutch word that meant "wagon" and the scot part probably comes from a word that means "partition." Put them together, and you've got a word for wood paneling in a room: usually the kind that goes half-way up the wall. Originally, wainscot was a type of foreign oak imported to Britain for use in paneling, before it came to mean the paneling itself.

Definitions of wainscot
  1. noun
    wooden panels that can be used to line the walls of a room
    see moresee less
    type of:
    panel
    sheet that forms a distinct (usually flat and rectangular) section or component of something
  2. noun
    panel forming the lower part of an interior wall when it is finished differently from the rest of the wall
    synonyms: dado
    see moresee less
    type of:
    panel
    sheet that forms a distinct (usually flat and rectangular) section or component of something
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