lunette

lunette (loo-NET) - n., any of various crescent or semi-circular objects, especially: a) in architecture, an opening in a vault or dome, b) in architecture, a recess above a window or door, c) a low crescent-shaped sand dune, d) a kind of fortification, e) the top region of an Egyptian stele, f) et cetera.


Borrowed from French for the architectural thingies in either the 16th or early 17th centuries, and other senses from that or by reborrowing, but all ultimately from that first lunete, small moon-shaped object, diminutive of lune, moon, from Latin luna.

---L.