Dōme, n.
n. [Fr. dôme, from Lat. domus, a house, domus Dei, or Domini, house of the Lord, house of God, It. domo, duomo, dome, cathedral, L. Lat. doma.]
Sense 1. A building; a house; a fabric;—used chiefly in poetry.
Approach the dome, the social banquet share. Pope.
Sense 2. (Arch.) A roof, or structure raised above the roof of an edifice, usually hemispherical in form, but sometimes the segment of a spheroid, ellipse, polygon, or other similar figure; a cupola.
☞ “The Italians apply the term il duomo to the principal church of a city, and the Germans call every cathedral church Dom; and it is supposed that the word in its present English sense has crept into use from the circumstance of such buildings being frequently surmounted by a cupola.” New Am. Cyc.
Sense 3. (a.) Any erection resembling the dome or cupola of a building, as the upper part of a furnace and the like. (b.) (Steam-engine.) A steam-dome. [See Illust. of Boiler.]
Sense 4. (Crystallog.) A termination of a prism by two planes meeting above in an horizontal edge, like the roof of a house.
☞ If the edge is parallel to the longer diagonal (macrodiagonal) of the prism, it is called a macro-dome; if parallel to the shorter (brachydiagonal), it is a brachydome; if parallel to the inclined diagonal in monoclinic crystals, it is called clinodome. Dana.