Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun engineering A type of water-tight enclosure used to create a dry foundation for building bridges and other structures over water.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • He stood full six feet in height, with noble shoulders, and a chest like a coffer-dam.

    Moby Dick; or the Whale 2002

  • For instance, in Maryland, a coffer-dam, excavated to a depth of 30 ft. in silt and water, had the bottom shoved in 2 ft., in spite of the fact that the waling pieces were 5 ft. apart vertically at the top and 3 ft. at the bottom, and were braced with 12 by 12-in. timbers, every 7 ft. horizontally.

    Pressure, Resistance, and Stability of Earth American Society of Civil Engineers: Transactions, Paper No. 1174, Volume LXX, December 1910 J. C. Meem

  • He liked to lie flat on the coffer-dam to read, with a row of tin letter-files under his head for a rest, the electric bulb and its shade so adjusted as to throw all the light on the page of his book.

    Wide Courses 1912

  • Throughout all the story Dalton had been sitting atop of the coffer-dam, hands with flat palms pressing down, and feet hanging, with heels drumming against the coffer-dam sides.

    Wide Courses 1912

  • The wall includes an outer wall built as a coffer-dam, a brick wall, a coat of cement, and a wall proper, a little over a yard thick.

    The Phantom of the Opera 1911

  • And that happened to be in the middle of the stream opposite the trestle on the masonry of the middle pier, now two feet above the coffer-dam.

    The U. P. Trail Zane Grey 1905

  • In the middle of the stream stood a coffer-dam in course of building, and near it another that had collapsed.

    The U. P. Trail Zane Grey 1905

  • However, the difficulty is being got over by the construction of a coffer-dam -- at a cost of £30,000.

    The Sequel What the Great War will mean to Australia 1900

  • Anyhow, at time of writing the coffer-dam is being constructed.

    The Sequel What the Great War will mean to Australia 1900

  • The company possesses a strip of land extending two miles along the shore; and in excavating the tunnel a coffer-dam was made with the extracted rock, to keep the river from flooding the works.

    The Story of Electricity John Munro 1889

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