A corbel is an architectural projection or bracket-like support that steps out from a wall to hold a beam or other weight, although some corbels are purely decorative.

A corbel, sometimes called corbelling, may be bricks or stones set out from the wall’s face, or it may be a short, sometimes carved, piece of wood. Corbel is also used as a verb: To corbel out means to build a corbel. The Old French word ”corbel stems” from the Latin corvus, for raven, possibly referring to early gargoyles.

Corbel appeared as an architectural term in the 15th century, indicating a projection from a wall designed to support a weight. Classic French architects were fairly specific about a corbel’s makeup, specifying that a corbel’s sides were perpendicular to the wall and it projected further than its height.

In England, corbel was strictly a technical architectural term until given mystique by Sir Walter Scott when, in his 1805 novel, “Lay of the Last Minstrel,” he wrote: “The corbels were carved grotesque and grim.”