sconce

Etymology 1

From Middle English sconce, sconse (“candlestick or lantern (with screen)”), from Old French esconse (“lantern”), from Latin absconsus (“hidden”), perfect passive participle of abscondō (“hide”). Cognate with abscond.

noun

1. A fixture for a light, which holds it and provides a screen against wind or against a naked flame or lightbulb.
   […] tapers put into lanterns or sconces of several-coloured, oiled paper, that the wind might not annoy them.
   Golden sconces hang not on the walls. 1847, John Dryden, The Works of John Dryden in Verse and Prose, volume 1, Harper, The Beginning of the Second Book of Lucretius, line 28, page 183
   1. A candlestick (holder for a candle, especially a circular tube, with a brim, into which a candle is inserted), either with a handle for carrying, or with a bracket for attaching to a wall.
      Taking the candle […] she stood with the little flat brass sconce in her hand. 1858, Mrs. Oliphant, Laird of Norlaw, I. v. 55
      This strange scene was lightd up by candles in high and havy brass sconces. 1859, W. Collins, Queen of Hearts, published 1875, page 41

Etymology 2

Unclear. Perhaps a use of sconce (“light fixture”) or sconce (“fortification”), but seemingly older than the latter

noun

1. A head or a skull.
   Long time this sconce a helmet wore, / But sickness smites the conscience sore; / He broke his sword, and hither bore / His gear and plunder, / Took to the cowl,—then rav’d and swore / At his damn’d blunder! 1818, John Keats, On Some Skulls in Beauly Abbey, near Inverness
   […] roll the rider and his horse in the dust, or endeavour to drive their lance through the bars of the visor into the bull's eye of their friend's sconce, […] 1824, Galignani's magazine and Paris monthly review, page 129
   […]; an old blue jacket, that at one time had been a coat, looped over a red plush “singlet” of perhaps twenty or even forty years' wear : his almost hairless sconce bared to the sun, from which it had received an imperishable coating of tan, he was an object that few would pass without hailing with observations,[…] he wiped his shining sconce … and raised his visor […] 1867, Benjamin Brierley, Marlocks of Merriton, page 56
2. A poll tax; a mulct or fine.
   I'll gladly pay a sconce 2011, Allan Mallinson, On His Majesty's Service
3. (Oxford University slang) An act of sconcing; very similar to a fine at Cambridge University, though a sconce is the act of issuing a penalty rather than the penalty itself.
   .
   The table opposite started singing "shit sconce, shit scone, shit sconce, shit sconce" […] 25 February 2014, James Burns, “Fishing for Sconces”, in funnywomen.com (blog), archived from the original on 2022-01-27

verb

1. (obsolete) To impose a fine, a forfeit, or a mulct.
   The Rector sconced him in the buttery-book, but Webberly “wiped it off, with irreverent and unbeseeming language.” For this, he had to apologise, and go without his commons for three months. 1898, Rev. A. Clark, University of Oxford, College Histories: Lincoln, page 73
2. (Oxford University slang) During a meal or as part of a drinking game, to announce some (usually outrageous) deed such that anyone who has done it must drink; similar to I have never; commonly associated with crewdates; very similar to fining at Cambridge University.
   I sconce anyone who has ever…

Etymology 3

Borrowed from Middle Dutch schans, cognate with German Schanze.

noun

1. A type of small fort or other fortification, especially as built to defend a pass or ford.
2. (obsolete) A hut for protection and shelter; a stall.
3. (architecture) A squinch.
4. A fragment of a floe of ice.
   Just then, a broad sconce-piece or low water-washed berg came driving up from the southward. The thought flashed upon me of one of our escapes in Melville Bay; and as the sconce moved rapidly close alongside us, McGary managed to plant an anchor on its slope and hold on to it by a whale-line. 1856, Elisha Kent Kane, Arctic Explorations
5. A fixed seat or shelf.

verb

1. (obsolete) to shut within a sconce; to imprison.