Brĭdġe1, n.
n. [A-S. brycg, bricg, bryc, bric, brig, Fries. bregge, Icel. bryggja, brû, Sw. brygga, bro, Dan. brygge, broe, D. brug, O. H. Ger. prucchâ, M. & N. H. Ger. brücke.]
- A structure, usually of wood, stone, brick, or iron, erected over a river or other watercourse, or over a ravine, railroad, &c., to make a continuous roadway from one bank to the other.
- (Mus.) (a.) The small arch at right angles to the strings of a violin, guitar, and the like, serving to raise them above the body of the instrument. (b.) In a harpsichord, or spinet, the flat ruler which is laid over the jacks, to prevent their leaping out of their sockets when the keys are in action. Moore.
- (Gun.) The two pieces of timber which go between the two transoms of a gun-carriage. [Not used in the U. S. service.]
Bridge of a steamer (Naut.), a narrow platform across the deck, connecting the wheel-houses. It serves also to brace the wheel-houses to each other. Ogilvie. — Bridge of the nose, the upper, bony part of the nose. — Bridge-train, a train of carriages for transporting the materials for a temporary military bridge. — Drawbridge, a bridge so constructed that a part of it may be temporarily removed, or drawn aside, to allow the passage of vessels; called also a swing-bridge, or bascule-bridge, when the part which opens turns laterally on a center or end pivot. — Flying bridge, a temporary bridge made of pontoons, boats, casks, or the like, as occasion requires, for the passage of armies; also, a floating structure connected by a cable with an anchor or pier up stream, and made to pass from bank to bank by the action of the current or other means. — Girder-bridge, or truss-bridge, a bridge made of girders, or trusses, in distinction from simple arches and suspension and floating bridges. — Lattice-bridge, a bridge made of one or more lattice-girders. — Skew bridge, a bridge built obliquely from bank to bank, as sometimes required in railway engineering. — Suspension bridge, a floor or truss suspended from two or more wire-cables, rods, or chains, which are stretched from bank to bank, or between piers, in the form of an inverted arch, and supported at the extremities by towers or obelisks. — Trestle-bridge, a bridge formed of a series of short simple-girders resting on trestles. — Tubular bridge, a single large tube or hollow girder, or a series of them, formed of wrought iron plates, and stretching from abutment to abutment, or from pier to pier, with the roadway in the interior—a construction devised by Robert Stephenson in 1845, and since exemplified on a large scale in the Britannia bridge over the Menai Straits, and the Victoria bridge at Montreal, C. W.