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I thought about posting this in woodworking, but everything there seems to be related to actual problems in carpentry.

I'm trying to describe a kitten’s behaviour: Frisky's so desperate for an opponent to wrestle with, even the [wall corner] will do. I want to know if there's a technical term for this kind of corner. I already tried searching here and also googling convex corner, corner facing out, and wall corner facing out, all without finding the sought after term.

Here's a picture of the actual thing:

enter image description here

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    You mean like a quoin or coign? And do you mean looking at it from the inside or from the outside, so thrusting towards you or away from you?
    – tchrist
    Aug 26, 2018 at 20:25
  • Convex, so thrusting toward you (the other way would be concave, altho I'm not sure I'm using these terms correctly if referring to corners on walls).
    – Wordster
    Aug 26, 2018 at 20:30
  • I just looked up your terms, and yup, that's what I was looking for. {thumbs up}
    – Wordster
    Aug 26, 2018 at 20:33
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    The everyday term for this is just "outside corner" as seen in this ELL question. This question isn't quite a duplicate of that one (you seem to be looking for the terminology used in that question, and that OP accepted an answer using the terminology you used, plus it's a different site), but I think @tchrist's answer here would be an excellent answer to that question.
    – 1006a
    Aug 26, 2018 at 20:44

2 Answers 2

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There is a word quoin or coign, which were originally variants of coin but relate to corner. Per the OED:

  1. Building.

    • a. Originally: an external angle of a wall; an outer corner of a building. Subsequently also: any of the stones or bricks serving to form this angle; a cornerstone. Cf. coin n. 1.

      Esp. used of cornerstones of a material or decoration differing from that of the rest of the wall.

    • b. An internal angle or corner of a wall, esp. of a room. Also: a recess in a wall, as for a gate; = hollow quoin n. at hollow adj. and adv. Special uses 3b.

The coign version is less often seen these days. The OED says that when it means the same as quoin, then quoin is the ordinary modern spelling.

Various other specialized senses of quoin exist, but this is the oldest of them all.

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    Well, yes, but don't expect to be understood if you use this word in a general context. Perhaps builders or interior decorators will know it, but I didn't!
    – TonyK
    Aug 26, 2018 at 21:23
  • Any builder worth their salt will immediately think of heavy stonework exterior corners, often found on brick buildings. The edge stones on either side of the keystone of masonry arches are also called quoins. I agree with @1006a that the workingman's term is outside corner
    – Phil Sweet
    Aug 27, 2018 at 1:27
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Angular - having angles or sharp corners https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/angular

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