Tonga Trench

[ tong-guh trench ]

noun

1. an oceanic trench in the South Pacific Ocean that lies as a nearly linear stretch from the northern end of the Kermadec Trench northward to an area south of Samoa, with rates of convergence along the two trenches’ subduction system being among the world’s fastest: the deepest trench in the Southern Hemisphere and the site of the Horizon Deep.

Word History and Origins

Origin of Tonga Trench¹

First recorded in 1910–15; named after the Tonga archipelago