Builder's Library

Have you ever found yourself scratching your head over some obscure construction term, such as detrusion (the shearing of wood fibers along the grain)? If so, you may be in the market for Means Illustrated Construction Dictionary, from the same folks who turn out estimating references every year. This compact volume contains 9,000 up-to-date definitions, including slang and colloquial terms, plus 1,000 illustrations to clarify the text. You'll find plenty of familiar terms, like on-center, softwood, clerestory, and firewall. But if you care to dabble, you'll also learn the meaning of a horde of esoteric words and phrases, such as cochlea (a spiral staircase), coaming (a raised curb around a hatchway or skylight), intrados (the undersurface of an arch), xyst (a promenade shaded by trees), and zeta (a small closed room, originally over the porch of a church). Not