bascule

See also: basculé

English

From French bascule, from earlier French bacule, from Old French bacul, from Old French battre + cul, from Latin battuō (“beat”) + cul (“bottom”).

bascule (plural bascules)

A counterbalanced structure having one end that rises as the other lowers.
- 1932, Journal of the Association of Chinese & American Engineers, page 10:
  In the late eighties and early nineties several new types of movable spans were advocated, including the pull-back draw, the jackknife span, the bob-tail swing, the horizontal-folding draw, the shearpole draw, the gyratory lift, the transbordeur, the double-cantilever swing, several types of bascule, and the vertical lift.
- 1986, Jeffrey A. Hess, Historic Highway Bridges in Wisconsin, page 87:
  The study sample contains nine rolling-lift bascules of the type invented by Chicago engineer William Scherzer in 1893 , and refined by the engineering staff of the Scherzer Rolling Lift Bridge Company, also of Chicago.
- 2009, w:Sherlock Holmes (2009 film), spoken by Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey Jr.):
  Look at those towering structures. It’s the first combination of bascule and suspension bridge ever attempted. Most innovative. [In reference to w:Tower Bridge.]
(firearms) The portion of a breech-loading firearm that pivots open in order to allow access to the chamber.
- 1997, Official Gazette of the United States Patent and Trademark Office:
  A device for coupling and releasing the trigger mechanism in a bascule of a gun