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plural propylaea or propylaeums
(historical, especially Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome) A vestibule or entrance, (especially) to a temple. quotations
On either side of the road young girls stood with pitchers at the fountains which bubbled there, and behind the houses forming the propylaea of the rock rose the massive forehead of the Isle — crested at this part with its enormous ramparts as with a mural crown.
1892, Thomas Hardy, The Well-Beloved