SECTION.--(1) A drawing of a building as it would appear if cut through at some fixed plane. (2) That part of the construction of a building which would be displayed by such a drawing as described above. (3) The profile of a moulding. SET-OFF.--A small ledge formed by diminishing the thickness of a wall or pier. SEXPARTITE VAULTING.--Where each bay or compartment is divided by its main ribs into six portions. SGRAFFITO (Italian).--An ornament produced by scratching lines on the plastered face of a building so as to show a different colour filling up the lines or surfaces scratched away. SHAFT.--(1) The middle part of a column between its base and capital. (2) In Gothic, slender columns introduced for ornamental purposes, singly or in clusters. SHELL ORNAMENT.--A decoration frequently employed in Italian and French Renaissance, and resembling the interior of a shell. SKY-LINE.--The outline which a building will show against the sky. SPANDREL.--The triangular (or other shaped) space between the outside of an arch and the mouldings, or surfaces inclosing it or in contact with it. (See Fig. _S_, under Diaper.) SPIRE.--The steep and pointed roof of a tower (usually a church tower). SPIRE-LIGHT (or LUCARNE).--A dormer window (which see) in a spire. SPLAY.--A slope making with the face of a wall an angle less than a right angle. STAGE.--One division in the height of any building or portion of a building where horizontal divisions are distinctly marked, _e.g._, the belfry stage of a tower, the division in which the bells are hung. STEEPLE.--A tower and spire in combination. Sometimes applied to a tower or spire separately. STEPPED GABLE.--A gable in which, instead of a sloping line, the outline is formed by a series of steps. STILTED ARCH.--An arch of which the curve does not commence till above the level of the impost (which see). STORY.--(1) The portion of a building between one floor and the next; (2) any stage or decidedly marked horizontal compartment of a building, even if not corresponding to an actual story marked by a floor. STRAP-WORK (Elizabethan).--An ornament representing strap-like fillets interlaced. STRING-COURSE.--A projecting horizontal (or occasionally sloping) band or line of mouldings. TABERNACLE WORK.--The richly ornamented and carved work with which the smaller and more precious features of a church, _e.g._, the fittings of a choir, were adorned and made conspicuous. TERMINAL (or Finial).--The ornamental top of a pinnacle, gable, &c. TERRA-COTTA.--A fine kind of brick capable of being highly ornamented, and formed into blocks of some size. THRUST.--The pressure exercised laterally by an arch or vault, or by the timbers of a roof on the abutments or supports.