Soffit

Soffit (from French:soffite, formed as a ceiling; directly from suffictus for suffixus, Latin:suffigere, to fix underneath), in architecture, describes the underside of any construction element. Examples of soffits include:

In popular use, soffit most often refers to the material forming a ceiling from the top of an exterior house wall to the outer edge of the roof, i.e., bridging the gap between a home's siding and the roofline, otherwise known as the eaves. When so constructed, the soffit material is typically screwed or nailed to rafters known as lookout rafters or lookouts for short.