ˈweigh-bridge
[Cf. G. brückenwage.]
A platform scale, flush with the road, for weighing vehicles, cattle, etc.
| 1796 R. Salmon in Repert. Arts & Manuf. VI. 74 Weigh⁓bridges or engines, with their apparatus, for the purpose of weighing carriages. 1825 in Newton's Lond. Jrnl. Arts (1828) XIV. 253 Certain improvements on Weighing Machines which Machines he [the patentee] denominates German Weigh Bridges. 1844 H. Stephens Bk. Farm III. 1194 The cart-steelyard or weigh-bridge. 1849 F. B. Head Stokers & Pokers viii. (1851) 75 [The] trucks..are immediately drawn by horses first over a weighbridge. 1886 Daily News 26 July 2/2 The heaviest lamb turned 169lb. on the weighbridge. |
| fig. a 1834 Coleridge Hints Th. Life (1848) 21 The positions of science must be tried..on the weigh-bridge of common opinion and vulgar usage. |