Cement:  a quick-setting binder for making mortars.  Commonly available as portland cement.  Historically, natural cements were also available, produced from naturally occurring combinations of limestone and clay.

Cherry cocks:  small stones placed into the surface of joints between stones in a wall, often in a formal pattern.

Column:  a vertical, usually cylindrical, support, commonly consisting of a base, shaft, and capital.

Compressive strength:  the maximum compressive stress that under gradually applied load a given solid material will sustain without fracture.

Concrete sand:  a marketed commodity, of siliceous aggregate comprising a range of particle sizes including small pebbles or grit, suitable for use in making concrete.  Also generally suitable for use in lime mortars, harling, etc.

Corbel:  a masonry block projecting from a wall to support a super incumbent element.

Coursed stonework:  built masonry where each layer has a clearly defined horizontal alignment of uniform, or near uniform, height.  It is often dictated by the size of the largest stones used in the construction.

Extrados:  the upper surface of an arch or vault.

Facade:  the principal exterior face of a building, usually the front.

Flashing:  pieces of sheet metal or the like used to cover and protect certain joints and angles, as where a roof comes in contact with a wall or chimney, especially against leakage.

Float:  a hand held masonry tool made of sponge, wood, magnesium, or metal designed to finish the surface of concrete or mortar.

Furrowing:  the process of making furrows in the mortar bed with the tip of a trowel to speed up bricklaying by better distributing mortar.

Grade:  the slope of a piece of ground.

Granite:  a very hard, granular, crystalline, igneous rock consisting mainly of quartz, mica, and feldspar and often used as a building stone.

Grouting:  filling joints, crevices or voids in walls, which are too small or inaccessible to be filled using mortar of normal consistency, using a very fluid binding material

Harling:  a thrown, or cast on, finish of lime and aggregate.

Head joint:  a vertical joint in masonry.

Intrados:  the under surface (as opposed to extrados) of an arch (or vault)

Jointer:  a hand held tool specifically designed to tool a mortar joint giving it a concave finish.

Keystone:  the central voussoir at the top of a completed arch.

Knocking up:  the re-working of a mortar mix to regain plasticity before use.

Lime putty:  hydrated lime which has been slaked from quicklime using sufficient water to form a thick liquid and subsequently settled out to a putty during storage.

Limestone:  a sedimentary rock consisting predominantly of calcium carbonate, varieties which are formed from the skeletons of marine microorganisms and coral: used as a building stone and in the manufacture of lime.

Limewash:  a form of paint, a suspension of lime (putty) in water.

Lintel:  a horizontal architectural member supporting the weight above an opening, as a window or a door.

Mortar:  any material which can be worked or placed in a plastic state, becomes hard when in place, and which can be used for bedding, jointing or finishing the materials forming the component parts of a wall.

Movement joints:  a function adopted in modern building practice, where joints are created between inflexible sections of wall or wall finishes.  They permit thermal movement of the wall to occur without cracking brittle finishes.

Parapet:  a low wall for protection at the edge of a balcony, terrace, roof, bridge, etc.

Parging:  an aesthetic/protective vertical application of mortar covering concrete or block work.

Pedestal:  a supporting substructure for a column or statue.

Perpend:  vertical joint in masonry walling.

Pier:  a massive vertical support often rectangular in plan and therefore differing from a column, sometimes having its own capital and base. When combined with pilasters, columns, or shafts, it is called a compound pier. Its proportions are far more variable than a classical column. Pier is also the term used for the solid mass between windows, doors, and arches.

Pigment:  colouring material mixed into mortar during the adding of water

Pilaster:  the pilaster is an architectural element in classical architecture used to give the appearance of a supporting column and to articulate an extent of wall, with only an ornamental function.

Pinning stones:  small stones placed in joints to stabilize masonry and reduce the volume of mortar required.  Used in conjunction with mortar in repointing.

Plasticity:  a description of the ease of spreading and cohesiveness of a mortar mix.

Plumb:  perfectly vertical, perpendicular to absolutely level.

Portland cement:  the common form of cement made by grinding clinker formed by firing clay and limestone at high temperatures.

Quoin:  large stone or block laid at the corner of a building (or at an opening) used either for reinforcement of the angle or for ornament.

Rebar:  a steel rod with ridges for use in masonry and concrete applications.

Refractory:  a material that retains its strength at high temperatures.

Rubble:  masonry using irregular and variable sized pieces of stone to create a strong construction.  Walls vary in appearance depending on the builder and the nature of the building stone.  Contrary to popular belief the wall is usually built in courses, not random.

Salt efflorescence:  the crystallization from solution of soluble salts from within a structure.  Normally associated with the drying out of wet walls.

Sandstone:  a common sedimentary rock consisting of sand, usually quartz, cemented together by various substances, as silica, calcium carbonate, iron oxide, or clay.

Silica:  a hard, unreactive, colourless compound that occurs as the mineral quartz and as a principal constituent of sandstone and other rocks.

Sill:  the horizontal piece or member beneath a window, door, or other opening.

Slicker:  a hand held tool designed for pressing mortar into a joint during pointing

Spalling:  the degradation of masonry or lime materials through loss of surface parts or layers.

Suction:  the characteristic by which a wet bond is created between mortar and porous masonry surfaces.

Trowel:  a small tool with a flat blade that is used for spreading and smoothing mortar.

Vault:  an arched ceiling or roof made of stone, brick, or concrete.

Voussoir:  a wedge-shaped stone used in the construction of an arch or vault.

Weep hole:  void head joints at the base of a wall left open in order to allow water to drain from within the wall and allow airflow to dry wet bricks.

Wet saw:  a wet cutting diamond blade. Used on a saw that has a continual water pump supply on the blade keeping the blade clean and cool.  Wet saw cutting also eliminates dust.

Wythe:  A wythe is a vertical tier of bricks, each single wythe being 1 brick wide.