keystone meaning: definition, etymology and quotations

keystone

noun

/ˈkiː.stəʊn/

Etymology From key + stone. Definition 4 (retail) possibly originated in the jewelry industry in the magazine called "Jewelers' Circular-Keystone".

Architecture The top stone of an arch.

The tunnel, which is 1,000 yd. long, had been closed to passenger traffic since November 17, 1949, after some of the keystones had worked loose.1950 March, “Notes and News: Sugar Loaf Tunnel, Central Wales Line”, in Railway Magazine, page 209:

Something on which other things depend for support.

Tension between empirical and theoretical knowledge is keystone to sociological and to organizational theories, as early as in Marx's and Weber's frameworks.1999, Eliezer Geisler, Methodology, Theory, and Knowledge in the Managerial and Organizational ...:

Business, Commerce, Retail A retail price that is double the cost price; a markup of 100%.

Ball games, Baseball, Games, Hobbies, Lifestyle, Sports The combination of the shortstop and second baseman.

Derived terms: Keystone Cop, keystone corner, keystone correction, keystone effect, keystone picture, keystone pricing, Keystoner, keystone species, Keystone State

verb

Etymology From key + stone. Definition 4 (retail) possibly originated in the jewelry industry in the magazine called "Jewelers' Circular-Keystone".

To distort (an image) by projecting it onto a surface at an angle, which for example causes a square to look like a trapezoid.

Business, Commerce, Retail To double the cost price in order to determine the retail price; to apply a markup of 100%.