CORBEL

(From the Fr. corbeille, a basket.) In Arcliitecture, a projecting bracket, often sculptured like a modillion, sometimes in the form of a basket, for the purpose of supporting a superincumbent object, also for receiving the springing, of an arch. A corbel table is a projecting battlement, parapet, or cornice, resting on corbels. CORCULUM. {L,3it. cor, the heart.) An old name for what botanists now call the embryo of a plant. It was not, however, applied with much precision; for the plumula and radicle alone of such seeds a& the bean and almond were called the corculum, while the term should have included the cotyledons also. [s. 293]