girder
Americannoun
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girders
plural
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a large beam, as of steel, reinforced concrete, or timber, for supporting masonry, joists, purlins, etc.
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a principal beam of wood, steel, etc., supporting the ends of joists.
noun
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a large beam, esp one made of steel, used in the construction of bridges, buildings, etc
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botany the structure composed of tissue providing mechanical support for a stem or leaf
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of girder
Explanation
A girder is any of the many beams used in buildings and bridges that provide support and actually hold them up. If you've ever seen a building going up, you know the first thing they do is put up a steel or wood skeleton that will eventually take the weight of the roof, the siding, the floors, and all the rooms inside. That skeleton is made of girders. Bridges also are made with girders, but they usually remain visible long after the steel beams in buildings have been covered by glass, brick, and wood.
Vocabulary lists containing girder
100 SAT Words Beginning with "G"
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Bless Me, Ultima
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"The End and the Beginning," Vocabulary from the poem
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Last week, the final girder was installed on the crossing, completing the foundation and marking a construction milestone.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 30, 2024
The girder was part of a project to build elevated highways in the city.
From BBC ● Jul. 10, 2023
Repair crews from Kraemer North America need pumped-in concrete to build large blocks on the girder floors, then allow 28 days for curing.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 22, 2022
They can also penetrate materials that x-rays cannot, enabling researchers to image the interiors of big objects such as a running engine or a steel girder.
From Science Magazine ● Nov. 2, 2021
Frightful did not see the cherry picker until Flip’s head and arm came up over the horizontal girder.
From "Frightful's Mountain" by Jean Craighead George
Whilst firefighters shouted for everybody to run away, Berriff said he "stayed there, looking through the small viewfinder on my camera to see 250,000 tonnes of metal and girders hurtling towards me".
From BBC ● Sep. 11, 2026
Starting in 2023, they tore out its center and moved steel girders until they resembled Swiss cheese.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 10, 2026
Masonry, metal girders and piles of sand are everywhere along the pavements.
From Barron's ● Nov. 24, 2025
Crews will be installing steel girders — long boxes of reinforced concrete — over the freeway in order to build the vegetated bridge, according to Caltrans.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 11, 2024
Steel girders replaced wood-framing, exteriors were made of brick or granite, and designs favored straight, simple lines.
From "The Great Fire" by Jim Murphy
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
