Word: scaffold Part of Speech: noun Etymology: From Middle English scaffold, scaffalde, from Anglo-Norman schaffaut, eschaffaut, eschafal, eschaiphal, escadafaut (“platform to see a tournament”) (Modern French échafaud), from Old French es- (indicating movement away or separation) (from Latin ex- (“out, away”)) + chafaud, chafaut, chafault, caafau, caafaus, cadefaut (“scaffold for executing a criminal”), from Vulgar Latin *catafalcum (“viewing stage”), possibly from Ancient Greek κατα- (kata-, “back; against”) + Latin -falicum (from fala, phala (“wooden gallery or tower; siege tower”)). Pronunciation: /ˈskæf.əld/, /ˈskæf.əʊld/, /ˈskæf.ld/ 1. A structure made of scaffolding for workers to stand on while working on a building. Example: 1. A scaffold must be able to hold four times the load it is expected to carry. / 2. The footing for a scaffold must be level and solid and must not have motion when weight is applied. The scaffold must be level and plumb. Example: It is quicker and easier to use a ladder as a means of access, but it is not always the safest. Jobs, such as painting, gutter repair, demolition work or window replacement, are often easier done using a scaffold. If the work can be completed comfortably using ladders, a scaffold need not be considered. Scaffolds must be capable of supporting building workers, equipment, materials, tools and any accumulated waste. 2. An elevated platform on which a criminal is executed. Example: The Begums' ministers, on the contrary, to extort from them the disclosure of the place which concealed the treasures, were, […] after being fettered and imprisoned, led out on to a scaffold, and this array of terrours proving unavailing, the meek tempered Middleton, as a dernier resort, menaced them with a confinement in the fortress of Chunargar. Thus, my lords, was a British garrison made the climax of cruelties! Example: Again and again she recurred to the scene of his execution, whose horror was heightened by the familiar circumstances with which it was attended. The customary scaffold has its own awe—justice and obedience and usage surround the place; but to die a violent death, and by the hand of man, amid life's daily scenes, all associations so domestic and so ordinary, aggravates the ghastly spectacle, and makes the doom seem at once cruel and undeserved. 3. An elevated platform on which dead bodies are ritually disposed of, as by some Native American tribes. 4. An accumulation of adherent, partly fused material forming a shelf or dome-shaped obstruction above the tuyeres in a blast furnace. 5. A structure that provides support for some other material. Example: [T]he inventors of the present invention have found that the above-described recombinant gelatin contained in the scaffold for vascular endothelial cell migration according to the present invention markedly promotes migration of vascular endothelial cells. Therefore, use of the scaffold for vascular endothelial cell migration according to the present invention makes it possible to ensure that vascular endothelial cells migrate to a predetermined site to newly form blood vessels. Example: […] Munoz et al. first proposed the following scaffold filling problem (on multichromosomal genomes with no gene repetition) as follows[…]. Given a complete (permutation) genome R and an incomplete scaffold S, fill the missing genes in R – S into S to have S′ such that the genomic distance […] between R and S′ is minimized. It was shown that this problem can be solved in polynomial time. 6. A device in scaffolding, i.e. the provision of a framework or support for achieving an intended outcome of internalizing learnings by way of collaboration and later gradual withdrawal of support.