Word Origins: Attic: In classical architecture, an Attic order was a pilaster, or square column (the naḿe comes from Attica, a region of ancient Greece of which Athens was the capital). This type of column was often used in a relatively low storey placed above the much higher main façade of a building, which hence became known in the 18th century as an attic storey. It was a short step to applying the word attic itself to an ‘upper storey’; the first record of it in this sense comes in Byron’s Beppo 1817: ‘His wife would mount, at times, her highest attic’.
Posted on: Mon, 17 Jun 2013 14:46:07 +0000
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