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pronunciation

How to pronounce apse in British English: UK [æps] word uk audio image

How to pronounce apse in American English: US [ æps] word us audio image

Noun:

a domed or vaulted recess or projection on a building especially the east end of a church; usually contains the altar

Word Origin

apse: apse: [19] Apse ‘vaulted recess in a church’ is an anglicization of Latin apsis. This was a borrowing of Greek apsís or hapsís, which meant literally ‘a fastening together’ (it was derived from the verb háptein ‘join’). The notion that underlies its application to a vaulted space seems to be the joining together of arcs to form a circle; an early Greek use was as a ‘felloe’, part of the rim of a wheel, and this later came to mean, by extension, the wheel itself.Further metaphoricization led to the sense ‘orbit’, and, more semicircularly, ‘arch’ or ‘vault’. The Latin/Greek form apsis itself was borrowed into English at the beginning of the 17th century, and remains in use as a technical term in astronomy, ‘extreme point of an orbit’.

apse (n.): "semicircular extension at the end of a church," 1846, from Latin apsis "an arch, a vault," from Greek hapsis (Ionic apsis) "loop, arch," originally "a fastening, felloe of a wheel," from haptein "fasten together," which is of unknown origin. The original sense in Greek seems to have been the joining of the arcs to form a circle, especially in making a wheel. The architectural term is earlier attested in English in the Latin form (1706).

2. Christian churches have usually been oriented with the apse or altar at the eastern end .

3. Mosques are oriented so that the mihrab faces mecca . Christian churches have usually been oriented with the apse or altar at the eastern end . Orientation is frequently planned to take maximum advantage of daily and seasonal variations of sunlight .

5. Apse : a semicircular or polygonal , usually domed projection of a building , especially the altar or east end of a church .