Quoin (Fr. coigne, from Lat. cuneus) is generally a wedge or an angle. In artillery the quoin is a wedge inserted beneath the breach of a gun, for raising or depressing the muzzle. Quoin, in Architecture, is one of the stones forming the solid corner of a building. Where the work is of brick or small materials the quoins are usually ashlar.
Quoin
Chambers's Encyclopaedia, Volume 8: Peasant to Eoumelia, p. 538
Source scan(s): p. 0549