PONTOON • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Pontoon

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/pɑntˈun/ Listen

noun

Pontoon n.

(Mil.) A wooden flat-bottomed boat, a metallic cylinder, or a frame covered with canvas, India rubber, etc., forming a portable float, used in building bridges quickly for the passage of troops.

(Naut.) A low, flat vessel, resembling a barge, furnished with cranes, capstans, and other machinery, used in careening ships, raising weights, drawing piles, etc., chiefly in the Mediterranean; a lighter.

Pontoon bridge, a bridge formed with pontoons.

Pontoon train, the carriages of the pontoons, and the materials they carry for making a pontoon bridge. Note: The French spelling ponton often appears in scientific works, but pontoon is more common form.

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Etymology of 'Pontoon'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Pontoon" Quotes from Famous Books

... and nobody but the guides knew our destination, and we followed them in silence up the shell-pitted road and across the pontoon bridge that spanned the Yser Canal. Various dark forms hobbled past, their baggy trousers showing them to be Algerians. A French outpost challenged us, and a party of Ghurkas passed us leading pack horses with the ...

— From the St. Lawrence to the Yser with the 1st Canadian brigade • Frederic C. Curry

... justice to the feelings I experienced at the time. I can truly say that I have never seen anything so lovely since—the splendid walks, with their long avenues of wide-spreading and noble-looking trees; the bright gardens and sparkling fountains; the babbling burns, crossed here and there by pontoon bridges; and last, but by no means least, the panoramic bits of the distant landscape visible through the openings in the trees—all these went to make up a veritable Arcadia. Then, as I walked further into the park I saw numbers ...

— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End

... called his forces) was left under the command of the Hungarian General Tuerr, as brave an officer as ever lived, and a fast friend to Italy, but his merits do not undo the fact that as soon as the Dictator's back was turned, everything got into a muddle. Pontoon bridges had been thrown across the river at four points; availing himself of one of these, Tuerr crossed the Volturno with a view to taking up a position on the right bank at a place called Caiazzo, a step which, if attempted at all, ought to have been supported by a very strong ...

— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco

... Little Colorado River, the stream was quite wide and of sufficient depth for navigation. The water was brackish and the banks were fringed with timber. Here the whole army concentrated before attempting to cross. The army was not accompanied by a pontoon train, and at that time the troops were not instructed in bridge building. To add to the embarrassment of the situation, the army was here, for the first time, threatened with opposition. Buglers, concealed from our view by the brush on the opposite side, sounded the "assembly," and other ...

— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... "Clarence Pontoon, th' military expert iv th' London Mornin' Dhram, reviewin' Gin'ral Buller's position on th' Tugela, says: 'It is manifest fr'm th' dispatches tellin' that Gin'ral Buller has crost th' Tugela River that Gin'ral Buller has crost th' Tugela River. This we r-read in ...

— Mr. Dooley's Philosophy • Finley Peter Dunne

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