Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Suspension \Sus*pen"sion\, n. [Cf. F. suspension, L. suspensio arched work, imperfect pronunciation. See Suspend.]
The act of suspending, or the state of being suspended; pendency; as, suspension from a hook.
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Especially, temporary delay, interruption, or cessation; as:
Of labor, study, pain, etc.
Of decision, determination, judgment, etc.; as, to ask a suspension of judgment or opinion in view of evidence to be produced.
Of the payment of what is due; as, the suspension of a mercantile firm or of a bank.
Of punishment, or sentence of punishment.
Of a person in respect of the exercise of his office, powers, prerogative, etc.; as, the suspension of a student or of a clergyman.
Of the action or execution of law, etc.; as, the suspension of the habeas corpus act.
A conditional withholding, interruption, or delay; as, the suspension of a payment on the performance of a condition.
The state of a solid when its particles are mixed with, but undissolved in, a fluid, and are capable of separation by straining; also, any substance in this state.
(Rhet.) A keeping of the hearer in doubt and in attentive expectation of what is to follow, or of what is to be the inference or conclusion from the arguments or observations employed.
(Scots Law) A stay or postponement of execution of a sentence condemnatory by means of letters of suspension granted on application to the lord ordinary.
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(Mus.) The prolongation of one or more tones of a chord into the chord which follows, thus producing a momentary discord, suspending the concord which the ear expects. Cf. Retardation.
Pleas in suspension (Law), pleas which temporarily abate or suspend a suit.
Points of suspension (Mech.), the points, as in the axis or beam of a balance, at which the weights act, or from which they are suspended.
Suspension bridge, a bridge supported by chains, ropes, or wires, which usually pass over high piers or columns at each end, and are secured in the ground beyond.
Suspension of arms (Mil.), a short truce or cessation of operations agreed on by the commanders of contending armies, as for burying the dead, making proposal for surrender or for peace, etc.
Suspension scale, a scale in which the platform hangs suspended from the weighing apparatus instead of resting upon it.
Syn: Delay; interruption; intermission; stop.
Bridge \Bridge\ (br[i^]j), n. [OE. brig, brigge, brug, brugge, AS. brycg, bricg; akin to Fries. bregge, D. brug, OHG. brucca, G. br["u]cke, Icel. bryggja pier, bridge, Sw. brygga, Dan. brygge, and prob. Icel. br[=u] bridge, Sw. & Dan. bro bridge, pavement, and possibly to E. brow.]
A structure, usually of wood, stone, brick, or iron, erected over a river or other water course, or over a chasm, railroad, etc., to make a passageway from one bank to the other.
Anything supported at the ends, which serves to keep some other thing from resting upon the object spanned, as in engraving, watchmaking, etc., or which forms a platform or staging over which something passes or is conveyed.
(Mus.) The small arch or bar at right angles to the strings of a violin, guitar, etc., serving of raise them and transmit their vibrations to the body of the instrument.
(Elec.) A device to measure the resistance of a wire or other conductor forming part of an electric circuit.
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A low wall or vertical partition in the fire chamber of a furnace, for deflecting flame, etc.; -- usually called a bridge wall.
Aqueduct bridge. See Aqueduct.
Asses' bridge, Bascule bridge, Bateau bridge. See under Ass, Bascule, Bateau.
Bridge of a steamer (Naut.), a narrow platform across the deck, above the rail, for the convenience of the officer in charge of the ship; in paddlewheel vessels it connects the paddle boxes.
Bridge of the nose, the upper, bony part of the nose.
Cantalever bridge. See under Cantalever.
Draw bridge. See Drawbridge.
Flying bridge, a temporary bridge suspended or floating, as for the passage of armies; also, a floating structure connected by a cable with an anchor or pier up stream, and made to pass from bank to bank by the action of the current or other means.
Girder bridge or Truss bridge, a bridge formed by girders, or by trusses resting upon abutments or piers.
Lattice bridge, a bridge formed by lattice girders.
Pontoon bridge, Ponton bridge. See under Pontoon.
Skew bridge, a bridge built obliquely from bank to bank, as sometimes required in railway engineering.
Suspension bridge. See under Suspension.
Trestle bridge, a bridge formed of a series of short, simple girders resting on trestles.
Tubular bridge, a bridge in the form of a hollow trunk or rectangular tube, with cellular walls made of iron plates riveted together, as the Britannia bridge over the Menai Strait, and the Victoria bridge at Montreal.
Wheatstone's bridge (Elec.), a device for the measurement of resistances, so called because the balance between the resistances to be measured is indicated by the absence of a current in a certain wire forming a bridge or connection between two points of the apparatus; -- invented by Sir Charles Wheatstone.
Wiktionary
n. A bridge where the deck or roadway is suspended from cables that pass over two towers.
WordNet
n. a bridge that has a roadway supported by cables that are anchored at both ends
Wikipedia
A suspension bridge is a type of bridge in which the deck (the load-bearing portion) is hung below suspension cables on vertical suspenders. The first modern examples of this type of bridge were built in the early 19th century. Simple suspension bridges, which lack vertical suspenders, have a long history in many mountainous parts of the world.
This type of bridge has cables suspended between towers, plus vertical suspender cables that carry the weight of the deck below, upon which traffic crosses. This arrangement allows the deck to be level or to arc upward for additional clearance. Like other suspension bridge types, this type often is constructed without falsework.
The suspension cables must be anchored at each end of the bridge, since any load applied to the bridge is transformed into a tension in these main cables. The main cables continue beyond the pillars to deck-level supports, and further continue to connections with anchors in the ground. The roadway is supported by vertical suspender cables or rods, called hangers. In some circumstances, the towers may sit on a bluff or canyon edge where the road may proceed directly to the main span, otherwise the bridge will usually have two smaller spans, running between either pair of pillars and the highway, which may be supported by suspender cables or may use a truss bridge to make this connection. In the latter case there will be very little arc in the outboard main cables.
Usage examples of "suspension bridge".
But where she felt best was on the suspension bridge, all wrapped in it, all the people hanging and hustling and doing what they did, and the way the whole thing grew a little, changed a little, every day.
Someone has rigged a rope suspension bridge across the debris-filled gap between the banks.
They walked out of the Hell's Gate train station late in the afternoon, and looked down into a big 'new tent town, located under an enormous suspension bridge.
After two days' driving downstream from the market village, still forty kilometers from Hell's Gate, they came around a bend in the canyon and could see down the length of it, to the towers of the piste's suspension bridge.
Until the construction of the Varrazano-Narrows Bridge in 1964, it was the longest single-span suspension bridge in the world.
From somewhere near the base of that hill, a graceful suspension bridge arced across the river to Pest.
We spiralled in from the sea over an ancient suspension bridge the colour of rust, and in amongst the heaped-up buildings of a peninsula hill at more than advisable speed.