Definition of "cantilever"
(architecture) A beam anchored at one end and projecting into space, such as a long bracket projecting from a wall to support a balcony.
Quotations
The service stairs were next to the main stairs, separated only by a wall, but what a difference there was between them: the narrow back stairs, dangerously unrailed, under the bleak gleam of a skylight, each step worn down to a steep hollow, turned tightly in a deep grey shaft; whereas the great main sweep, a miracle of cantilevers, dividing and joining again, was hung with the portraits of prince-bishops, and had ears of corn in its wrought-iron banisters that trembled to the tread.
2004, Alan Hollinghurst, chapter 10, in The Line of Beauty […], 1st US edition, New York, N.Y.: Bloomsbury Publishing
verb
third-person singular simple present cantilevers, present participle cantilevering, simple past and past participle cantilevered