trestle

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A horizontal beam or bar held up by two pairs of divergent legs and used as a support.
2. n. A framework consisting of vertical, slanted supports and horizontal crosspieces supporting a bridge.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A frame, consisting of a beam or bar fixed at each end to a pair of spreading legs, for use as a support. A single trestle is often used by mechanics to rest work against; two or more trestles serve as a support for a board or other object laid upon them horizontally for some temporary purpose. Early household tables commonly consisted of boards laid upon movable trestles, the board in this case being the table proper; and trestle, in the singular, is sometimes used for the whole support of a table when the parts are joined into a framework.
2. n. Same as puncheon.
3. n. In heraldry, a low stool or bench used as a bearing: usually represented with three legs.
4. n. In civil engineering, a framework for supporting string-pieces, as of a railway, a bridge, or other elevated structure, composed of uprights with diagonal braces, and either with or without horizontal timbers below the stringers.
5. n. plural The shores or props of a ship under construction.
6. n. Same as trestletree.
7. n. In leather manufacturing, the sloping plank on which skins are laid while being curried.
8. n. An obsolete form of threshold.

Wiktionary

1. n. A horizontal member supported near each end by a pair of divergent legs, such as sawhorses.
2. n. A folding or fixed set of legs used to support a table-top or planks
3. n. A framework, using spreading, divergent pairs of legs used to support a bridge.
4. n. A trestle bridge

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A movable frame or support for anything, as scaffolding, consisting of three or four legs secured to a top piece, and forming a sort of stool or horse, used by carpenters, masons, and other workmen; also, a kind of framework of strong posts or piles, and crossbeams, for supporting a bridge, the track of a railway, or the like.
2. n. The frame of a table.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a supporting tower used to support a bridge
2. n. sawhorses used in pairs to support a horizontal tabletop