Forms: 1 brycgian, 3 brugge-n, 3–4 brigge(n, 7– bridge. [OE. brycgian, f. brycg, BRIDGE, sb.; cf. OHG. bruccôn, MHG. brucken, brücken.]
1. trans. To make a bridge over (a river, ravine, etc.); to span with a bridge or similar means of passage. Often predicated of the thing that spans. Often with across, over.
a. 1000. Andreas, 1263 (Gr.). Is brycgade blæce brimrade.
c. 1205. Lay., 21276. Þa al wes Auene stram mid stele ibrugged.
1375. Barbour, Bruce, XII. 404. Thai had befor [the] day Briggit the pollis.
1665. Manley, Grotius’ Low-C. Warrs, 155. Now that the Schelde was thus bridged.
1718. Pope, Iliad, XXI. 274. The large trunk … Bridg’d the rough flood across.
1846. Grote, Greece (1862), II. i. 21. A strait narrow enough to be bridged over.
1853. Kane, Grinnell Exp., xlii. (1856), 388. An arch of ice … bridging a fissure.
1879. Froude, Cæsar, xxviii. 485. They bridged the Rhine in a week.
† b. To overlay, spread over. Obs.
c. 1200. Trin. Coll. Hom., 91. Þe children briggeden þe wei biforen ure drihten, sume mid here cloðes. Ibid. Sume briggeden þe asse mid here cloðes, and sume mid boȝes þe hie breken of þe trewes.
c. To span or cross as with a bridge.
1872. ‘Mark Twain,’ Innoc. Abr., xiii. 91. A speculator bridged a couple of barrels with a board.
1876. Gwilt, Archit., Gloss. s.v. Bridge-over, The upper joists … bridge over the beams or binding-joists, and … are called bridging-joists.
d. fig.
1853. Clough, Songs in Abs., vii. 8. The wide and weltering waste above—Our hearts have bridged it with their love.
1862. Sir B. Brodie, Psychol. Inq., II. I. 24. To bridge over the space which separates the known from the unknown.
1879. Proctor, Pleas. Ways Sc., xiii. 326. The gap between the lowest savage and the highest ape is not easily bridged.
2. To form (a way) by means of a bridge.
1667. Milton, P. L., X. 310. Xerxes … Over Hellespont Bridging his way, Europe with Asia joyn’d.
1705. J. Philips, Blenheim (1715), 15 (R.).
| Advance; we’ll bridge a Way, | |
| Safe of access. |
3. slang. (See quot.)
1812. J. H. Vaux, Flash Dict., To bridge a person, or to throw him over the bridge, is … to deceive him by betraying the confidence he has reposed in you.
