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nave

   Also found in: Dictionary/thesaurus, Acronyms, Wikipedia, Hutchinson 0.01 sec.
nave (nāv), in general, all that part of a church that extends from the atrium to the altar and is intended exclusively for the laity. In a strictly architectural sense, however, the term indicates only the central aisle, excluding side aisles. The floor plan of a wide central portion with narrower aisles on either side existed in the typical hypostyle hypostyle (hĭp`əstīl, hī`pə–)
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 hall of Egyptian temples and later in the Roman civic basilicas. From the latter it passed into the churches of the early Middle Ages and gradually to Gothic cathedrals. The nave, in the developed Gothic style, became the main body of the structure. Internally the piers, rising the full height of the nave walls to carry the ribs of the four-part vault or sexpartite vault, divided the walls into a series of bays in which three features, ground floor arcade, triforium triforium (trīfôr`ēəm), in church architecture, an arcaded gallery above the arches of the nave.
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, and clerestory clerestory or clearstory (both: klĭr`stōr'ē, –stôr'ē)
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, were evident, one above another.

nave

Enlarge picture
Nave, Salisbury Cathedral, England, begun 1220
(credit: A.F. Kersting)
Main part of a Christian church, extending from the entrance (the narthex) to the transept or chancel (area around the altar). In a basilican church (see basilica), which has side aisles, nave refers only to the central section. Medieval naves were generally divided into many bays, producing the effect of great length. During the Renaissance, the nave format became more flexible, and the nave was divided into fewer compartments, giving a feeling of spaciousness and balanced proportion among the height, length, and width, as in St. Paul's Cathedral.


nave
the central space in a church, extending from the narthex to the chancel and often flanked by aisles


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And those myriads of statues, which peopled all the spaces between the columns of the nave and the choir, kneeling, standing, equestrian, men, women, children, kings, bishops, gendarmes, in stone, in marble, in gold, in silver, in copper, in wax even,--who has brutally swept them away?
Overhead, Handel's March swelled pompously through the imitation stone vaulting, carrying on its waves the faded drift of the many weddings at which, with cheerful indifference, he had stood on the same chancel step watching other brides float up the nave toward other bridegrooms.
In the valley beneath lay the city they had just left, its more prominent buildings showing as in an isometric drawing--among them the broad cathedral tower, with its Norman windows and immense length of aisle and nave, the spires of St Thomas's, the pinnacled tower of the College, and, more to the right, the tower and gables of the ancient hospice, where to this day the pilgrim may receive his dole of bread and ale.
 
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