Word Direct Answers

What does "bridge" mean?

Bridge: Anything supported at the ends, which serves to keep some other thing from resting upon the object spanned, as in engraving, watchmaking, etc., or which forms a platform or staging over which something passes or is conveyed.

Additional senses

  1. 2.(Mus.) The small arch or bar at right angles to the strings of a violin, guitar, etc., serving of raise them and transmit their vibrations to the body of the instrument.
  2. 3.(Elec.) A device to measure the resistance of a wire or other conductor forming part of an electric circuit.
  3. 4.A low wall or vertical partition in the fire chamber of a furnace, for deflecting flame, etc.; -- usually called a bridge wall. Aqueduct bridge. See Aqueduct. -- Asses' bridge, Bascule bridge, Bateau bridge. See under Ass, Bascule, Bateau. -- Bridge of a steamer (Naut.), a narrow platform across the deck, above the rail, for the convenience of the officer in charge of the ship; in paddlewheel vessels it connects the paddle boxes. -- Bridge of the nose, the upper, bony part of the nose. -- Cantalever bridge. See under Cantalever. -- Draw bridge. See Drawbridge. -- Flying bridge, a temporary bridge suspended or floating, as 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 formed by girders, or by trusses resting upon abutments or piers. -- Lattice bridge, a bridge formed by lattice girders. -- Pontoon bridge, Ponton bridge. See under Pontoon. -- Skew bridge, a bridge built obliquely from bank to bank, as sometimes required in railway engineering. -- Suspension bridge. See under Suspension. -- Trestle bridge, a bridge formed of a series of short, simple girders resting on trestles. -- Tubular bridge, a bridge in the form of a hollow trunk or rectangular tube, with cellular walls made of iron plates riveted together, as the Britannia bridge over the Menai Strait, and the Victoria bridge at Montreal. -- Wheatstone's bridge (Elec.), a device for the measurement of resistances, so called because the balance between the resistances to be measured is indicated by the absence of a current in a certain wire forming a bridge or connection between two points of the apparatus; -- invented by Sir Charles Wheatstone.
  4. 5.To build a bridge or bridges on or over; as, to bridge a river. Their simple engineering bridged with felled trees the streams which could not be forded. Palfrey.
  5. 6.To open or make a passage, as by a bridge. Xerxes . . . over Hellespont Bridging his way, Europe with Asia joined. Milton.
  6. 7.To find a way of getting over, as a difficulty; -- generally with over.

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