[‘ Something resembling a skeleton; a framework or underlying structure. Also: a skeleton; the bones of the skeleton collectively (rare).']
Pronunciation: Brit. /ˈɒsətjʊə/, ˈɒsətʃə, U.S. /ˈɑsəˌtʃʊ(ə)r/, ˈɑsətʃər
Etymology: < French /ossature/ (1801 in sense 1; 1803 in sense 2) < classical Latin /oss-, /os bone (see os n.1) + French /-ature/ -ature suffix, probably after French /musculature/ musculature n. Compare much earlier Italian /ossatura/ skeleton (/a/1529; 1550 in fig. use).
Now rare.
*1.* Something resembling a skeleton; a framework or underlying structure. Also: a skeleton; the bones of the skeleton collectively (rare).
1834 /Jrnl. Royal Geogr. Soc./ *4* 82 Lofty mountains..so far from being, as they have been termed, the frame-work, the skeleton, the ossature of the earth, which binds, strengthens, and sustains it.
1885 /Truth/ 28 May 851/2 Frenchmen cannot bear to see her because her ossature is so mannish.
1930 D. B. W. Lewis /Satire & Fiction/ 53 The ossature is my favourite part of a living animal organism, not its intestines.
1947 /Philos. & Phenomenol. Res./ *8* 22 The kernel of Aristotle’s teaching remained undisclosed..; the bases of his logical investigations did not attract attention, only the external ossature of his classification.
1995 /Artforum Internat./ *33* 1 Whether in John’s gauzy, masklike lamination, loosened from an ossature,..or in Telma’s too-dense, too-defined stony substantiality, the bits add up not so much to a face but a heavily impregnated, heavily invested screen.
*2.* /Archit./ The skeleton or framework that supports a structure, as the ribs of a vault, the beams of a roof, or the frame of a window.
/a/1878 G. G. Scott /Lect. Mediæval Archit./ (1879) I. 64 The vaults govern the ossature of the monument.
/a/1878 G. G. Scott /Lect. Mediæval Archit./ (1879) I. 70, I then treated only the mechanical framework of the style—its mere ossature, to use M. Viollet le Duc’s expression.
1911 L. Hourticq /France/ 99 To decorate this somewhat puny ossature and drape this nudity, architects added a quantity of ornamental amenities.
1999 J. S. Curl /Dict. Archit./ (at cited word), /Ossature/. Skeleton of a building, such as a frame or the ribs of a ‘vault’.