Word.ws English Dictionary

bridge-and-tunnel

bridge-and-tunnel adjective: of people who travel to Manhattan via bridge or tunnel from surrounding communities.

Adjective

bridge-and-tunnel (not comparable)

  1. (New-York-City, derogatory, slang) Of people who travel to Manhattan via bridge or tunnel from surrounding communities.
    • "Tonight we get the Bridge-and-Tunnel People." He said this like, "Tonight the Nazis attack."
      "The Bridge-and-Tunnel People?"
      "They come from Jersey and Long Island to get drunk and have a good time."1990 July, Joe Bob Briggs, “My Life as Joe Bob Briggs”, in Texas Monthly, →ISSN, page 132
    • And much to the consternation of their city cousins, many of whom view them with the same disdain they reserve in the other three seasons for the bridge-and-tunnel people who dare to cross the Hudson and East Rivers for a bit of Manhattan glamour, they seem to be taking over.1999 August 1, Bernard Stamler, “Whose Hamptons Are They Anyway?”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
    Synonyms:
    B&T, BNT

Synonyms of bridge-and-tunnel

  • B&T
  • BNT

Forms of bridge-and-tunnel

alternative formbridge and tunnel

Origin of bridge-and-tunnel

From the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority and the fact that road travel to Manhattan Island requires passage over a bridge or through a tunnel.

Words formed from bridge-and-tunnel

Questions about bridge-and-tunnel

What does bridge-and-tunnel mean?
Bridge-and-tunnel means of people who travel to Manhattan via bridge or tunnel from surrounding communities.
What part of speech is bridge-and-tunnel?
Bridge-and-tunnel is an adjective.

Words near bridge-and-tunnel in the dictionary

  1. bridge translations
  2. bridge up
  3. bridge whist
  4. bridge wire
  5. bridge wires
  6. bridge-and-tunnel
  7. bridge-and-tunneler
  8. bridge-and-tunnelers
  9. bridge-builder
  10. bridge-builders
  11. bridge-building

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bridge-and-tunnel (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-bridge-and-tunnel.ogg.

Cite this entry: “bridge-and-tunnel.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bridge-and-tunnel. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.