[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. Sir 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.
