Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Same as swing-bolster.

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

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Examples

  • However, early the next day hope revived when five men entered, four mounting among the beams to the swing-beam with tools, one at the ladder-head shouting up orders; and Hogarth, when they had gone, whispered Harris: "They have been unscrewing the sockets in which the bell-beam swings".

    The Lord of the Sea 1906

  • About eleven, lying along two beams, they could see the portal below opened, and four men came in, looking unreal and small; whereupon the leverage wheel was pulled, the swing-beam swung, the bell struck the clapper, and throughout the tower growled grum sounds: after which the four stood talking half an hour, and went away.

    The Lord of the Sea 1906

  • It is the straight which pleases the eye, and does not allow the reader's eyes to go nodding up and down like a swing-beam.

    NPNF2-08. Basil: Letters and Select Works 1895

  • That near Benha contains eight spans or openings of 80 feet each, and two centre spans, formed by one of the largest swing bridges ever constructed, — the total length of the swing-beam being 157 feet, — a clear water-way of 60 feet being provided on either side of the centre pier.

    Lives of the Engineers The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson Samuel Smiles 1858

  • And groping he went, seeking the great Bell of Colmoor, which he had doomed, hearing sounds of the to-do, echoes that ran below, and the vague shout of somebody, till he touched the flat top of the bell, clamped to the swing-beam on which he sat astraddle; felt also that along the top of the beam lay an iron bar; made sure that this was in actual contact with the clamps of the bell: and, no longer hesitating, set to work upon the can.

    The Lord of the Sea 1906

  • Half went to the east, half to the west, side of the bell; and three of the cables were fastened round the swing-beam near one end, three near the other end; one three were then cast over a beam higher than the swing-beam, to the north of it; the other three cast over a beam to the south of it; and the six ends lowered -- operations which Hogarth, lying on his face, could just see; and the twelve had hardly begun to descend, when he saw a lorry backed into the gateway, filling half 1 the area of the tower; whereupon over a hundred convicts were swarming over and round it.

    The Lord of the Sea 1906

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