Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A horizontal beam or bar held up by two pairs of divergent legs and used as a support.
  • noun A framework consisting of slanted braces and horizontal crosspieces supporting a bridge or causeway.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A frame, consisting of a beam or bar fixed at each end to a pair of spreading legs, for use as a support.
  • noun Same as puncheon.
  • noun In heraldry, a low stool or bench used as a bearing: usually represented with three legs.
  • noun In civil engineering, a framework for supporting string-pieces, as of a railway, a bridge, or other elevated structure, composed of uprights with diagonal braces, and either with or without horizontal timbers below the stringers.
  • noun plural The shores or props of a ship under construction.
  • noun Same as trestletree.
  • noun In leather manufacturing, the sloping plank on which skins are laid while being curried.
  • noun An obsolete form of threshold.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A movable frame or support for anything, as scaffolding, consisting of three or four legs secured to a top piece, and forming a sort of stool or horse, used by carpenters, masons, and other workmen; also, a kind of framework of strong posts or piles, and crossbeams, for supporting a bridge, the track of a railway, or the like.
  • noun The frame of a table.
  • noun a board used by architects, draughtsmen, and the like, for drawing designs upon; -- so called because commonly supported by trestles.
  • noun See under Bridge, n.

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

  • noun A horizontal member supported near each end by a pair of divergent legs, such as sawhorses.
  • noun A folding or fixed set of legs used to support a table-top or planks
  • noun A framework, using spreading, divergent pairs of legs used to support a bridge.
  • noun A trestle bridge

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a supporting tower used to support a bridge
  • noun sawhorses used in pairs to support a horizontal tabletop

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English trestel, from Old French, alteration of Vulgar Latin *trāstellum, trānstellum, diminutive of Latin trānstrum, beam; see transom.]

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Examples

  • Retell “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce using a local train trestle and creek as the setting.

    Short Eerie Reads... ____Maggie 2006

  • Retell “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce using a local train trestle and creek as the setting.

    Archive 2006-10-01 ____Maggie 2006

  • He recalled the trestle west of the forest where the bindlestiffs from the Pacific Fruit line jungled up at nights, or during long layovers.

    Strange Alliance Bryce Walton 1953

  • The trestle was a double-decked structure of yellow pine, with 10 by 10-in. posts and sills, 10 by 14-in. intermediate and top caps, and 2 by 10-in. longitudinal and cross-braces.

    Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910 The Site of the Terminal Station. Paper No. 1157 George C. Clarke

  • The network of the trestle was a maze of incised lines against the shaded bank opposite.

    The Return of Blue Pete Luke Allan

  • "No, but the trestle is the sticker," some one remarked.

    Joe Strong, the Boy Fish or Marvelous Doings in a Big Tank Vance Barnum

  • We would have taken any way rather than this; but it was late and growing dark, and the trestle was a short cut home.

    The Story of My Life Annie Sullivan 1905

  • We would have taken any way rather than this; but it was late and growing dark, and the trestle was a short cut home.

    The Story of My Life Keller, Helen, 1880-1968 1903

  • "However, the long-term safety and adequacy of the trestle is the primary concern, and if those considerations dictate a necessity to replace the whole thing, we will do it," he said.

    Durangoherald.com 2010

  • It burned the wooden ties on the trestle, which is about four miles north of Chama.

    Durangoherald.com 2010

Comments

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  • "In heraldry, a low stool or bench used as a bearing: usually represented with three legs." --Cent. Dict.

    June 20, 2012