Quoin
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Generally, a quoin is a wedge, used to support or anchor other items.
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In architecture, quoins are the corner stones that anchor the edge of the building wall.
Quoins may be structural, or may be decorative. Architects and builders use quoins to give the impression of strength and firmness to the outline of a building. Rough-finished or rusticated masonry is also frequently used for foundation layers of buildings to give the same impression. Quoinage can be carried out in stone on a stone building, with stone on a predominantly brick building, or by laying brick masonry to give the appearance of blocks at the corner. If structural, quoins are usually part of load bearing walls; if decorative, they may be made of a variety of materials including brick, stone and wood. The most common form of decorative use for a quoins uses an alternative pattern of rectangles that wrap around the wall, mimicking the pattern of stone blocks or brick as they would wrap around a corner and thus join the two walls. In Georgian architecture, wooden quoins were most often part of an overall theme to imply stone, and thus permanence.
In the world of printing, quoins are wedges used by printers to hold the hand-set type in place in a printer's chase. The printer's term also gives us the (correctly spelled) saying, "to quoin a phrase."
In naval warfare and the world of piracy, a quoin was a wedge manipulated at the breech end of a cannon to raise or lower the barrel.