A collective term for the beams of a structure or ship; the total weight or burden carried by beams.
From 'beam' (Old English 'bēam' meaning 'tree' or 'wooden prop') + '-age' (suffix indicating collection or effect). The suffix '-age' creates nouns from other parts of speech.
Medieval shipwrights used 'beamage' to describe how much weight the ship's wooden frame could support—it's a forgotten technical term that measured whether a vessel would sink or sail.
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