From Ancient Greece with Love

The Encyclopedia Britannica defines a cornice as "the decorated projection at the top of a wall," but that bare definition fails to conjure up the elegance that a well-carved cornice can add to a building. A better introduction is to think about the etymology of the word cornice, which comes from the Greek word for "curved" and also gives us the English word "crown." A cornice is the decorative carved stone that sticks out from where the wall and the roof meet. In many ways, it's the crown of the building.