Talk:Gantry

Material for incorporation
Perhaps some of this information from the OED should be added.


 * Gantry


 * [Of doubtful origin; app. f. GAWN + TREE; but this may be an etymologizing perversion of OF. gantier (14th c. in Du Cange s.v. cantarium), var. of chantier (:{em}med.L. cant{amac}rium) gantry.]


 * 1. A four-footed wooden stand for barrels.


 * {alpha} 1574 Richmond Wills (Surtees) 251, ix hogesheads in the buttrie with the gantrees and traves there. 1611 COTGR., Ponton,..a Stilling, or Gauntrie for Caske to stand on. 1674-91 RAY N.C. Words 30 A Gauntry. 1724 RAMSAY Tea-t. Misc. (1733) I. 105, I..paid him upon a gantree As hostler wives should do. a1774 FERGUSSON Hallowfair Poems (1845) 13 At Hallowfair where brousters rare Keep guid ale on the Gantrees. 1816 SCOTT Old Mort. viii, The housekeeper..is neither so young nor so handsome as to tempt a man to follow her to the gauntrees. 18.. MATHER Songs 17 (Sheffield Gloss.) Our brewing tubs and gantries are over turn'd all. 1893 PEEL Spen Valley 282 Great gauntries where were..once stored multitudes of barrels of the strong ale.


 * {beta} 1807 J. HALL Trav. Scotl. I. 226 Gauntrice (so they call the wooden frame or stand on which they place their barrels, when they are to be tapped). a1811 GRAHAME in Hone Every-day Bk. (1827) II. 1179 The frothing bickers..Are drained, and to the gauntress oft return.


 * 2. a. A frame or platform for carrying a travelling-crane or similar structure.


 * 1810 Hull Improv. Act 54 Any..frame gantry or other article. 1861 Times 7 Oct., There were two travelling-cranes on the gantry over the bridge. 1882 Engineer 24 Feb. 133/2 Alongside these docks is a gantry, on which work steam cranes. 1896 Nature 24 Sept. 515 The scheme adopted was to erect a high gantry supported by towers on either bank.


 * attrib. 1888 Lockwood's Dict. Mech. Engin. 157 Gantry crane, an overhead travelling crane carried on a gantry. 1943 J. S. HUXLEY TVA 23 Gantry cranes swung the concrete from the mixing barges to the forms. 1958 Engineering 7 Mar. 298/3 The gantry tower, which is used in preparing the vehicle for flight, is being moved away from the launching area.


 * b. A structure crossing several railway-tracks to accommodate signals.


 * 1889 G. FINDLAY Eng. Railway 79 The fitting shop at Crewe turns out about nine signals per week, including composite or bracket and gantry posts. 1902 Encycl. Brit. XXXII. 144/1 In cases where room must be economized, signals are usually placed on narrow overhead bridges or ‘gantries’ spanning a number of tracks. 1939 R. S. LYONS Wonders Mod. Industry iii. 35 Ten rail-joints, then Exe Station; ten more rail-joints, then signal gantry, bridge. 1958 DAY & COOPER Railway Signalling Systems viii. 124 The train stops must always be beside the line to which they refer, but the signals, with which they must be connected may be on a gantry or bracket some distance from that line.


 * Hence (from the {beta} form) {sm}gauntress v. trans., to mount on a beer-stand.


 * 1812 W. TENNANT Anster F. VI. xxiv, Gawntress'd round each ruddy fire about, Hogheads of porter..spout Their genial streams.

JKeck (talk) 03:45, 13 August 2010 (UTC)