Mortar (masonry)

Description

A mixture of materials that sets to form a hard, infusible solid. Most mortars are mixtures of lime, plaster of Paris or cement with sand and water. Lime mortar is composed of lime, sand and water. It has been used as a support for fresco. Cement mortar is composed of portland cement, sand and water. It is used to fill the joints of brick and stone masonry. Other types of inorganic mortars include adobe, brick dust mortar, and hydraulic cement. Some organic materials that have been used as mortars and mortar modifiers are epoxy, phenolic resin and polyester resin.

Synonyms and Related Terms

"mortier (Fr.); argamassa (Port.); masonry cement; cement mortar;

Sources Checked for Data in Record

• R. J. Gettens, G.L. Stout, Painting Materials, A Short Encyclopaedia, Dover Publications, New York, 1966

• G.S.Brady, Materials Handbook, McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York, 1971 Comment: p. 175

• Ralph Mayer, A Dictionary of Art Terms and Techniques, Harper and Row Publishers, New York, 1969 (also 1945 printing)

• Richard S. Lewis, Hawley's Condensed Chemical Dictionary, Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, 10th ed., 1993

• Dictionary of Building Preservation, Ward Bucher, ed., John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York City, 1996

• Random House, Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, Grammercy Book, New York, 1997

• The American Heritage Dictionary or Encarta, via Microsoft Bookshelf 98, Microsoft Corp., 1998

• Art and Architecture Thesaurus Online, http://www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabulary/aat/, J. Paul Getty Trust, Los Angeles, 2000