A structural piece of stone, wood or metal jutting from a wall to carry a weight.
Corbelling, where rows of corbels gradually build a wall out from the vertical, has long been used as a simple kind of vaulting, for example in many Neolithic chambered cairns, where walls are gradually corbelled in until the opening can be spanned by a slab.
A very famous corbeled vault is at Newgrange:
Above their heads, the ceiling rose in a corbeled vault, with the wide, square bricks arranged in overlapping layers until they met in the middle.
Definition from Wikipedia; image from arthistoryleavingcert.com
metonymic / autodidactic 
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