brig

Meaning

Noun

• A two-masted vessel, square-rigged on both foremast and mainmast
• A jail or guardhouse, especially in a naval military prison or jail on a ship, navy base, or (in fiction) spacecraft.
• Bridge.
• Brigadier.

Origin

• Abbreviated from brigantine, from Italian brigantino; in sense “jail”, from the use of such ships as prisons.
• From Scots brig, from Old Norse bryggja, from Proto-Germanic *brugjǭ. bridge.