Other forms: bridges, bridging, bridged
A bridge is the structure that carries a road or a path over a river, a valley or a railway. You drive over it, walk over it, and stop in the middle to look down at the water.
The word travels into odd corners of the language. The bridge of a ship is the high glassed-in place the officers steer from; the bridge of your nose is the ridge between your eyes where glasses sit; a dentist's bridge fills the gap left by missing teeth; a guitar's bridge holds the strings clear of the body; a song's bridge is the middle part that sounds unlike everything around it. Bridge is also a card game for four players in two pairs, and a serious one. As a verb it closes distance: bridge a gap, bridge the difference between two positions. Three phrases you will meet everywhere: we will cross that bridge when we come to it, burn your bridges, and water under the bridge.
1nounbridgeA structure built over a river, valley or road so that people can cross it.~89%
“The old stone bridge takes one car at a time.”
2nounraisedThe raised, enclosed part of a ship where the officers steer from.~2%
“The captain watched the ice from the bridge all night.”
3nounbonyThe bony ridge at the top of the nose.~2%
“His glasses had worn a red mark on the bridge of his nose.”
4nouncardA card game for four players in two pairs.~5%
“They play bridge every Thursday in the church hall.”
5verbcloseTo close a gap or a difference between two things.~2%
“A small loan bridged the gap until the invoice was paid.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 20 sentences found in the wild and placed 20 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
bridge is a structure.
Bridge goes back through Old English brycg and Proto-Germanic *brugjo to a Proto-Indo-European root meaning wooden flooring or decking. The oldest bridge in the family was a plank floor laid across something wet. German Brucke and Dutch brug are the same word still standing.
Proto-Indo-European
*bʰerw-
Proto-Germanic
*brugjō
Proto-West Germanic
*bruggju
Old English
brycġ — bridge
Middle English
brigge
English, today
bridge
Built from
From Middle English brigge, from Old English brycġ (“bridge”), from Proto-West Germanic bruggju, from Proto-Germanic brugjō, brugjǭ (“bridge”), from Proto-Indo-European bʰerw-, bʰrēw- (“wooden flooring, decking, bridge”). 2 Cognate with Scots brig, brigg (“bridge”), yol burge (“bridge”), frr brag, Bröch (“bridge”), stq Brääch, Brääg (“bridge”), West Frisian brêge (“bridge”), Dutch brug (“bridge”), German Brücke (“bridge”), li brögk (“bridge”), lb Bréck (“bridge”), wym bryk (“bridge”), Yiddish בריק (“bridge”), Danish -, Norwegian Bokmål brygge (“jetty, pier, wharf”), Faroese -, Icelandic bryggja (“pier”), Norwegian Nynorsk brygge, bryggje (“jetty, pier, wharf”), Swedish brygga (“bridge; pier”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA