1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Torus

TORUS, a Latin word, meaning a round swelling or protuberance, applied to a convex moulding in architecture, which in section is generally a semicircle. The earliest examples are found in Egypt, where it was carried up the angles of the pylon and temple walls and horizontally across the same. Its most frequent employment is in the bases of columns; in the Roman Doric order being the lowest moulding; in the Ionic orders there are generally two torus mouldings separated by a scotia with fillets. Both in Greek and Roman bases sometimes the torus is elaborately carved. (See Moulding.)