noun

• 1A small dome, especially a small dome on a drum on top of a larger dome, adorning a roof or ceiling.

  ‘The scaffolding reaches to the top of the cupola that adorns the roof giving the builders a perch almost 100 feet up.’

  More example sentences

  • ‘The large building is built in the traditional style with barrel vaulted ceilings and cupolas.’
  • ‘It has arcades all around, a pavilion at the eastern end has crenellated roof and a cupola of glass mosaic.’
  • ‘An interior staircase is topped by a cupola with skylights.’
  • ‘At times, the flourish over the city of towers and spires, domes, cupolas and pinnacles has an insubstantial visionary quality, seeming detached from the sturdy fabric beneath.’
  • ‘The pedestrian approach is softened by brick pavers laid in a radial design reinforcing the centerline of the building and the cupola on the roof.’
  • ‘On one project, the heliodon helped the architects size the overhang on a cupola and observe the effects of clerestory windows on the spaces below.’
  • ‘And the weathervane-topped cupola's operable windows draw cooling breezes through the interior of the house.’
  • ‘When daylight came, already the roof of the dome, with its cupola and lantern, had fallen in, its timbers burning fiercely.’
  • ‘In the morning from my twelfth-floor hotel room I watch the burning sun come up out of an early mist, lighting the cupolas and copper domes of New Delhi's neo-classical buildings with fire.’
  • ‘Vents in the facade, the cupolas, and the oculi inside allowed air to circulate throughout the building.’
  • ‘Most manufacturers make their cupolas with copper-cladded roof structures, which are beautiful and blend with virtually any type of roofing.’
  • ‘It was completed 160 years later in Renaissance style with rendered brickwork and a copper-covered cupola.’
  • ‘The upward pull of a starry cupola or the mesmerizing allure of a sun-drenched atrium are some obvious examples.’
  • ‘Inside, the leaks were stopped, the floors retiled, and the beautiful stained glass was cleaned and outside you can now look up to fine white verandahs and pretty cupolas.’
  • ‘From the age-old cupolas and minarets, vibrant markets to skyscraping buildings and pulsating nightlife, Cairo has it all.’
  • ‘An octagonal cupola, along with much of the original material, required extensive reconstruction.’
  • ‘The cupola and the concrete construction were corroded, the masonry was wet, and plaster work was peeling off.’
  • ‘He would say, ' No, enlarge that tower, and let's put two cupolas on top '.’
  • ‘White walls and the golden cupolas of the churches can be seen clearly against the screen of the blue sky.’

  Synonyms

  cupola, vault, rotunda, arched roof, arched ceiling

  1. 1.1A gun turret; a small domed hatch above a gun turret on some tanks.
     ‘Atop the all-welded turret are the commander's cupola (with single hatch cover) on the left and the loader's hatch on the right.’
     More example sentences

     • ‘Firing ports are provided for the crews' personal weapons and a machine-gun mounting is fitted on the left turret cupola with an optional machine-gun.’
     • ‘As he watched, a hatch motored open on the forward gunner's cupola and a helmeted visage favored him with a toothy, wolfish grin.’
     • ‘The vehicle is protected with an armoured superstructure and fitted with an armoured observation cupola.’
     • ‘The commander's cupola in the centre of the vehicle is equipped with five periscopic sights which give 360° vision.’
     • ‘The driver has three episcopic sights and the commander's observation cupola has five episcopes.’
     • ‘Down on the ground he remains at his station within the commander's cupola of his personnel carrier.’
     • ‘One of our weapons was the .50 caliber machine gun mounted in an armored cupola atop the turret.’
     • ‘The commander sat in the turret cupola, looking awfully smug.’
     • ‘The crew consists of the driver plus four or three operators in the cupola, a commander, a gun layer and an ammunition loader.’
     • ‘He was still on alert in his commander's cupola, in his vehicle.’
     • ‘The loader has a machine gun, mounted on the cupola.’
     • ‘The cupola can also be fitted with panoramic stabilised sight.’
     • ‘A 7.62-mm machine gun is located on the commander's cupola.’
  2. 1.2A cylindrical furnace for refining metals, with openings at the bottom for blowing in air and originally with a dome leading to a chimney above.
     ‘It erected the first cupola furnace in the United States in 1835.’
     More example sentences

     • ‘And after John Wilkinson patented the small, slender, metal-clad cupola furnace in 1794, Founders gained greater control of the remelting process.’
     • ‘In duplexing, the iron is melted in a cupola or electric arc furnace, and the molten metal is transferred to a coreless or channel-type induction furnace for holding and pouring.’
     • ‘The trainees man blast furnaces, or cupolas, in Kawaguchi, a city with a population of 470,000 just north of Tokyo.’
     • ‘That is probably why its testing of a graphic that explains what a cupola is (a furnace that melts tons of scrap) scored so well with participants.’