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Rib

Architecture
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A projecting arch that reinforces a vault. It can suggest a skeletal pattern, tension, or the visible supports of a poem's shape.

Detailed Definition
An architectural rib is an arched structural line, especially in Gothic vaulting, that strengthens and organizes the ceiling above. Because the word also belongs to anatomy, it naturally connects building and body. In poetry, ribs may become the exposed framework beneath a grand surface: the supports of breath, the cage around a heart, or the formal pattern holding emotion aloft. A poet can use the image to reveal how elegance depends on tension, repetition, and durable inner structure.
Example
Example in poetry:
“Ribs of stone cross the vaulted ceiling like the bones of a vast animal” uses vault ribs as structural and anatomical imagery; In a church poem, ribs can guide the reader’s eye upward toward a keystone or window; “The ribs of the roof hold night above the congregation” shows how architecture can make abstract darkness feel physical; A poem about survival may compare a ruined building’s exposed ribs to a body that remains standing after injury
Additional Notes
A rib is a visible reinforcing element in a vault. It can describe a poem’s underlying framework, bodily vulnerability, or tension made structurally necessary.
Other Meanings of “Rib”
Also Known As
Vault Rib Ribbing
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