vaulted

1. 1
   verb

   Past tense and past participle of vault.

   The thief vaulted the counter and ran out the back door.

   The original manuscripts were vaulted for safekeeping after the fire.

   Note

   The past form carries some very different verbs: a thief vaulted the counter, a mason vaulted a crypt, a bank vaulted its gold. Gamers use it for content pulled from a game in an update, so a weapon that has been vaulted is no longer in play. Before a noun the architectural meaning usually wins, as in a vaulted ceiling.

2. 2
   adjective

   Of a ceiling, formed and supported by arches; also used of a room with an arched ceiling.

   Candlelight flickered across the vaulted ceiling of the crypt.

   The library occupies a long vaulted room that was once the monastery's chapter house.

   Similararched, domed

   Note

   The word belongs to architecture but travels easily from the ceiling to the whole room: Letitia Elizabeth Landon's Ethel Churchill has "a large vaulted apartment" that was once a chapel and is now half library, half laboratory. Kinds of vault have their own names (barrel, groin, rib) and the pointed rib vault is the one tied to Gothic building.

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