rustication

[ ruhs-ti-key-shuhn ]

noun

1. Also called rustic work. Architecture. any of various forms of ashlar so dressed and tooled that the visible faces are raised above or otherwise contrasted with the horizontal and usually the vertical joints.
2. the act of a person or thing that rusticates.

Word History and Origins

Origin of rustication¹

First recorded in 1615–25, rustication is from the Latin word rūsticātiōn- (stem of rūsticātiō ). See rusticate, -ion

Example Sentences

He’s expected — and expects himself — to use his rustication as a chance to recharge, and then to step right back onto the relentless escalator of his career.

From New York Times

It is there as rustication and entablature — there, too, on one of the city’s main churches, Santo Domingo de Guzmán.

From New York Times

They use a wonderful kind of Venetian rustication framing deeply carved details made with layers of colored cement called sgraffito.

From New York Times

Director Daniel Roher makes resourceful use of as much archival footage as he can gather, including vintage interviews with Band members who have since died; cutting still photographs together with whiplash speed, Roher does an admirable job of conveying the various periods in the Band’s short but brimming life together, from the raucous rustication of the Catskills to the more languorous Malibu era in the 1970s, when they recorded under starmaking machine David Geffen.

From Washington Post

The riddle has been read, in these terrible days of reading and writing—so different from the days when a Papal rustication at Avignon disturbed the Catholic world, and verily shook the Papacy to its foundations even then.

From Project Gutenberg