C2 · 32 words
Architecture and building history
Structure, articulation and what a building says to the street.
Die Attika is the one word on this list that an English reader carries up the wrong stairs. It is not the room under the roof — that is der Dachboden, or das Dachgeschoss once somebody lives in it. Die Attika is outside: the low band of wall set above the main cornice, which on a classical front hides the roof and on a modern flat-roofed block is the raised rim that finishes the facade. English once used the word in that sense as well, for a short storey above the cornice, and then let it drift inwards to the space behind it. German kept it on the outside. So a report on repairs to die Attika is about masonry and sheet metal seen from the pavement, and nobody is going up there to fetch the Christmas decorations.
The words
Verb (2)
auskragento cantilever, to projectVerbC2
Separable and regular: kragt aus, hat ausgekragt.
entkernento gut (a building)VerbC2
Inseparable: entkernt, hat entkernt. In the kitchen: to core or stone fruit.
This list belongs to Culture, belief and taking part — 28 lists and 1048 words that can also be practised as a whole.
Practise this list
Multiple choice and gaps, drawn from exactly these 32 words. Whatever you get wrong comes back tomorrow.