bridge
Meanings
- A construction or natural feature that spans a divide.
- A construction spanning a waterway, ravine, or valley from a height, allowing for the passage of vehicles, pedestrians, trains, etc.
- The upper bony ridge of the human nose.
- A prosthesis replacing one or several adjacent teeth.
- The gap between the holes on a bowling ball
- An arch or superstructure.
- An elevated platform above the upper deck of a mechanically propelled ship from which it is navigated and from which all activities on deck can be seen and controlled by the captain, etc; smaller ships have a wheelhouse, and sailing ships were controlled from a quarterdeck.
- The piece, on string instruments, that supports the strings from the sounding board.
- A particular form of one hand placed on the table to support the cue when making a shot in cue sports.
- A cue modified with a convex arch-shaped notched head attached to the narrow end, used to support a player's (shooter's) cue for extended or tedious shots. Also called a spider.
- Anything supported at the ends and serving 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.
- A defensive position in which the wrestler is supported by his feet and head, belly-up, in order to prevent touch-down of the shoulders and eventually to dislodge an opponent who has established a position on top.
- To be or make a bridge over something.
- To span as if with a bridge.
- To transition from one piece or section of music to another without stopping.
- To connect two or more computer buses, networks etc. with a bridge.
- To go to the bridge position.
- To employ the bridge tactic. (See Noun section.)
- Any of a certain family of trick-taking card games.
- A card game played with four players playing as two teams of two players each.
- A surname.
- An occupational surname for a bridgekeeper
- A habitational surname for someone living near a bridge or at a location called Bridge or Bridges
- A toponymic surname for someone from Bruges
- Alternative form of Bridgen.
- Alternative form of Bridges.
- A village and civil parish in Canterbury district, Kent, England (OS grid ref TR1854). Recorded as Brige in 1086 (DB), from Old English brycg.
- An unincorporated community in Coos County, Oregon, United States, named for a river bridge.
Pronunciation
Word forms
Etymology
From Middle English brigge, from Old English brycġ (“bridge”), from Proto-Germanic *brugjō, *brugjǭ (“bridge”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰerw-, *bʰrēw- (“wooden flooring, decking, bridge”). Cognates Cognate with Scots brig, brigg (“bridge”), Yola burge (“bridge”), North Frisian brag, Bröch (“bridge”), Saterland Frisian Brääch, Brääg (“bridge”), West Frisian brêge (“bridge”), Dutch brug (“bridge”), German Brücke (“bridge”), Limburgish brögk (“bridge”), Luxembourgish Bréck (“bridge”), Vilamovian bryk (“bridge”), Yiddish בריק (brik, “bridge”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål brygge (“jetty, pier, wharf”), Faroese, Icelandic bryggja (“pier”), Norwegian Nynorsk brygge, bryggje (“jetty, pier, wharf”), Swedish brygga (“bridge; pier”). The verb is from Middle English briggen, from Old English brycġian (“to bridge, make a causeway, pave”), derived from the noun. Cognate with Dutch bruggen (“to bridge”), Middle Low German bruggen (“to bridge”), Old High German bruccōn (“to bridge”) (whence Modern German brücken). The sense of a part of a stringed instrument is a semantic loan from German Steg, from Old High German steg.