A small tooth-shaped block used as a repeating ornament in the bed mould of a cornice. For thousands of years, dentils have been used on high-end structures as a purely visually feature. They are typically placed just under the larger-top-part of the molding (known as the bed mold), where it transitions to flat.
The standard exterior dentil is rectangular, has an equal projection and width, with the height typically being equal or larger. The spacing between dentils was traditionally half-the-width of the dentil itself, but the Venetian dentil (dentil space = dentil width) is seen more commonly in modern architecture.
There are various styles of dentils available on the market today. The square dentil is still the more popular, but cast materials such as polyurethane allow for the use of other decorative dentils.