barn bridge n [Prob calque of PaGer scheierbrick; cf Ger (Luxembourg) dial Scheierbréck] chiefly PA Cf barn hill n, bridge wall n, wharfing n
A wooden ramp or bridge leading to the upper floor of a barn; this ramp or bridge together with the solid embankment with which it is often associated.
1864 Taylor John Godfrey’s Fortunes 122 PA, We hurried under the barn-bridge with our treasure, and agreed to take “slice about,” so as to have an equal division. 1877 Friends’ Rev. 31.236 sePA, He was standing on his barn bridge, at the time. 1883 OH Practical Farmer 63.363, We made our cistern in barn bridge back of back wall of barn. 1905 MI Farmer 47.4, A Model Dairy Barn. . . The root cellar . . is built under the barn bridge. 1924 Daily Republican (Rushville IN) 18 July 8/3, The little four year old boy . . fell off a high barn bridge and cut his head very severely. 1942 Mansfield News–Jrl. (OH) 30 June 4/6, I borrowed a trailer and we hauled the corn up to the barn bridge and left it to dry. 1948 Altoona Mirror (PA) 28 Jan 15/8, Most of these rats had made their home among the stone forming the barn-bridge. 1955 Daily News–Rec. (Harrisonburg VA) 30 June 15/7, His tractor overturned off the barn bridge and fell on him. 1965 PA Folklife 14.3.21, The terms “barn bridge” and “barn hill” would seem to be traditional terms in Pennsylvania. Barn bridge is the more general term, “barn hill” I have heard in Lancaster County. 1976 Post–Std. (Syracuse NY) 6 July 22/1, I used to drive “on” the hay load and “off” on the hay fork, a process which meant unhitching the team and squeezing it past the load of hay between the bulging mows . . , or backing the load into the barn, up the steep barn bridge and into place beneath the dangling hay fork, an unlikely feat. 1982 Tyrone Daily Herald (PA) 22 Nov 2/4, The only equipment lost was an older tractor that was sitting on the barn bridge. 2007 Gettysburg Times (PA) 29 Oct sec A 1/2, [Caption:] Hampton Fire Chief Randy Wolf . . stands on the barn bridge and looks at what is left following a barn fire.