rotunda

Meanings

1. A round building, usually small, often with a dome.
2. A Gothic typeface used in early printed books in Northern Italy, based on a rounded script developed in the 13th cent.; the manuscript hand on which this typeface was based.
3. Alternative spelling of rotonda.
4. A form of cupola that has pentagons rather than squares or rectangles.

1. The United States Capitol rotunda.

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin rotunda, from rotundus (“round”). In the architectural sense, from Sancta Maria Rotunda (the name for a church in the Pantheon).