Cyma
κῦμα
Cyma (κῦμα), in architecture, an ogee, a wave-shaped moulding, consisting of two curves, the one concave and the other convex. There were two forms, the cyma recta, which was concave above and convex below, thus,, and the cyma reversa, which was convex above and concave below, thus,. The diminutive cymatium or cumatium (κυμάτιον) is the more common name. The original form of the cymatium was, however, a simple hollow (the cavetto), thus. This was called the cymatium Doricum, and the other the cymatium Lesbicum. (Aesch. Fr. 70, ed. Dindorf; Böckh, Corp. lnscr. vol. i. p. 284; Vitr. 3.5.7, 4.1.7, 4.3, § § 6, 8, iv, 6.2, 5.3, 5; Phot. 565, 18; Etym. M. p. 749, 38; Gruter, Inscr. p. ccvii.; Müller, Archöl. d. Kunst, § 274, Mauch, Gr. und Röm. Bauord. pp. 6, 7: for examples, see the profiles on pp. 492-3.)
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.