Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A bridge that can be raised or drawn aside either to prevent access or to permit passage beneath it.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A bridge which may be drawn up or let down to admit or hinder communication, or to leave a transverse passage free, as before the gate of a town or castle, or over a navigable river. Formerly also called
draught-bridge and draught. Seedraft . - noun A bridge one or more sections of which can be lifted or moved aside to permit the passage of boats.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A bridge of which either the whole or a part is made to be raised up, let down, or drawn or turned aside, to admit or hinder communication at pleasure, as before the gate of a town or castle, or over a navigable river or canal.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A
hinged bridge which can beraised (to prevent its being crossed, as across amoat , or to allowwatercraft to travel beneath it).
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a bridge that can be raised to block passage or to allow boats or ships to pass beneath it
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
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Examples
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The time it takes to operate the drawbridge is a significant fraction of the headways of the BRT service proposed to run on the bridge.
Neighborhood Activists Still Oppose State’s 520 Option « PubliCola 2010
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One cannot have this both ways and the proposed second drawbridge is arguably the worst of all possible outcomes here.
Neighborhood Activists Still Oppose State’s 520 Option « PubliCola 2010
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Betty desired the man to drive to the drawbridge; and, at the sound of the word drawbridge, various associations of ideas with the drawbridges of ancient times were called up in Miss Warwick's imagination.
Tales and Novels — Volume 01 Maria Edgeworth 1808
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The hall is entered by two bridges, each ending in a drawbridge, which is kept in full working order, and both drawbridges are, and have been for some hundreds of years, hauled up at ten o'clock every night, when the house can only be approached from the park by means of a boat.
What to See in England Gordon Home 1923
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The drawbridge was the precarious ground of many a midnight strife, till the daring gallantry of Nigel Bruce became the theme of every tongue; a gallantry equalled only by the consummate skill which he displayed, in retreating within his entrenchments frequently without the loss of a single man either as killed or wounded.
The Days of Bruce Vol 1 A Story from Scottish History Grace Aguilar 1831
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The drawbridge is the only access to the interior of the castle.
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The drawbridge is the only access to the interior of the castle.
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A man's home is his castle, of which he is king, and the positioning of the drawbridge is the king's prerogative.
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This package includes three coordinated sets of tools: "drawbridge", an exceptionally powerful bridging filter package; "tiger", a set of convenient yet thorough machine checking programs; and "netlog", a set of intrusion detection network monitoring programs.
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But the Romans hurriedly built ships and placed upon each a kind of drawbridge, fitted with great hooks called grappling-irons.
Introductory American History Elbert Jay Benton
chained_bear commented on the word drawbridge
"A bridge or roadway across a moat or ditch that lifts (lifted) to make crossing impossible." (added from an online glossary because Weirdnet got it only mostly right)
August 25, 2008