EAVES

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does eaves mean? 

• EAVES (noun)
  The noun EAVES has 1 sense:

1. the overhang at the lower edge of a roof

  Familiarity information: EAVES used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• EAVES (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The overhang at the lower edge of a roof

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("eaves" is a kind of...):

overhang (projection that extends beyond or hangs over something else)

Domain usage:

plural; plural form (the form of a word that is used to denote more than one)

Holonyms ("eaves" is a part of...):

roof (a protective covering that covers or forms the top of a building)

 Context examples 

The farmhouses were my delight, with thatched roofs, ivy up to the eaves, latticed windows, and stout women with rosy children at the doors.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

It was lit within by slits under the eaves.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

“Ah, yes,” he cried, “here’s the end of a long light ladder against the eaves. That is how he did it.”

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Look at those shields upon my wall and under my eaves.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

A few minutes later our driver pulled up at a neat little red-brick villa with overhanging eaves which stood by the road.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I stepped over the great western gate, and passed very gently, and sidling, through the two principal streets, only in my short waistcoat, for fear of damaging the roofs and eaves of the houses with the skirts of my coat.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

The roof was poor and thatched; but in strange contrast to it there ran all along under the eaves a line of wooden shields, most gorgeously painted with chevron, bend, and saltire, and every heraldic device.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Here I sat for some time, five hundred yards from the ground, expecting every moment to be blown down by the wind, or to fall by my own giddiness, and come tumbling over and over from the ridge to the eaves; but an honest lad, one of my nurse’s footmen, climbed up, and putting me into his breeches pocket, brought me down safe.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)