puncheon

noun puncheons · punchion

1. A figured stamp, die, or punch, used by goldsmiths, cutlers, etc.
2. A short, upright piece of timber in framing; a short post; an intermediate stud. he chose to regard [his father] with a lowering and suspicious mien, unless it were in the dead hours of the night, when he developed a morbid craving to be trotted back and forth and up and down the puncheon floor [...].
3. A piece of roughly dressed timber with one face finished flat (by either hewing or sawing).
4. A split log or heavy slab of timber with the face smoothed, used especially for flooring but also for log cabin walls, piers, or plank roads.
5. A walkway or short, low footbridge over wet ground constructed with such timbers, made by laying one or more planks or dressed timbers over sills set directly on the ground.

   Similar: duck boards, bog boards, bog bridge

6. A short low bridge of similar construction.

   Similar: puncheon bridge

7. A cask of a certain size; its volume used as a measure of capacity varying from 72 to 120 gallons. Once in the Grenada islands, when I and above eight others were pulling a large boat with two puncheons of water in it, a surf struck us, and drove the boat and all in it about half a stone's throw, among some trees, and above the high water mark.

   Similar: tertian, tercian