A buttress is an architectural structure built against (a counterfort) or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. Buttresses are fairly common on more ancient buildings, especially in Germany, as a means of providing support to act against the lateral (sideways) forces arising out of the roof structures that lack adequate bracing.
The word buttress, in a more general sense, means to support; one might buttress another person’s arguments, for instance. By visual analogy, that which looks like a buttress may be called so; a projecting tree root at the base of the trunk, for example, may be referred to as a buttress.
In more modern buildings, better internal bracing of structures arising out of a more well-developed understanding of structural engineering diminishes the use of buttresses; however they are by no means obsolete, and will continue to be found as integral parts of certain structures, not least in certain designs of free standing curtain and retaining walls.
Source: Wikipedia
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