| Smalti | Small irregularly shaped pieces of mosaic that are snipped from 10 mm slabs of highly coloured glass... | |
| Soakers | Flexible metal interleaved between courses of slates or plain tiles at abutments (see earlier descri... | |
| Soffit: | The underside of an arch.... | |
| Soldier Arch: | Not a true arch but rather a \joggled lintel". Widely used in housing the flat span is formed by ver... | |
| Soldier Course: | A course, or part of one, of bricks set upright (soldier like) and may be flush with the wall face o... | |
| Spacer Pegs | A series of plastic spacer pins or pegs of prescribed width, used during wall tile fixing to maintai... | |
| Span: | The clear horizontal distance between the arch supports.... | |
| Spandrel: | The curved triangular piece of wall between the haunches of adjoining curved arches as in an arcade.... | |
| Spirit Level | A hand held instrument for establishing vertical and horizontal levels.... | |
| Spirit Level: | This replacement of the earlier Plumb Rule is fitted with glass bubble-tubes so that work can be che... | |
| Splay cuts | Tiles cut diagonally... | |
| Split tiles | A description often applied to extruded ceramic tiles which were made back to back, wire cut to size... | |
| Springing Line: | A horizontal line from which the lowest point of an arch commences at the extremities of the intrado... | |
| Squaring a large floor | An operation now performed with the aid of a laser, but originally using a large builder's timber se... | |
| Squint Quoin: | A quoin, being other than a 90 deg. angle, built as an obtuse angle on the exterior of the building.... | |
| Stepped Flashing: | A strip of sheet lead cut to form steps up the sides of a chimney, parallel to the pitch of the roof... | |
| Stepped Foundations: | Used when building on a sloping site to save excessive excavation and the amount of brickwork below ... | |
| Stop end | filled end of a ridge tile over a hip or gable.... | |
| Stopped End: | The end of a wall built vertically (door opening) as opposed to the angle of a quoin; the bonding of... | |
| Straight Edge | An accurately prepared timber batten or a manufactured aluminium item, used in setting out and also ... | |
