trench

¹

[ trench ]

noun

1. Fortification. a long, narrow excavation in the ground, the earth from which is thrown up in front to serve as a shelter from enemy fire or attack.
2. trenches, a system of such excavations, with their embankments, etc.
3. a deep furrow, ditch, or cut.
4. Oceanography. a long, steep-sided, narrow depression in the ocean floor.

verb (used with object)

1. to surround or fortify with trenches; entrench.
2. to cut a trench in.
3. to set or place in a trench.
4. to form (a furrow, ditch, etc.) by cutting into or through something.
5. to make a cut in; cut into; carve.

verb (used without object)

1. to dig a trench.

verb phrase

1. 1. to encroach or infringe on.
   2. to come close to; verge on:

      His remarks were trenching on poor taste.

Trench

²

[ trench ]

noun

1. Richard Chen·e·vix [shen, -, uh, -vee], 1807–86, English clergyman and scholar, born in Ireland.

trench

/ trɛntʃ /

noun

1. a deep ditch or furrow
2. a ditch dug as a fortification, having a parapet of the excavated earth

verb

1. to make a trench in (a place)
2. tr to fortify with a trench or trenches
3. to slash or be slashed
4. intr; foll by on or upon to encroach or verge

trench

/ trĕnch /

1. A long, steep-sided valley on the ocean floor. Trenches form when one tectonic plate slides beneath another plate at a subduction zone. The Marianas Trench, located in the western Pacific east of the Philippines, is the deepest known trench (10,924 m or 35,831 ft) and the deepest area in the ocean.

Other Words From

• subtrench noun
• un·trenched adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of trench¹

1350–1400; Middle English trenche path made by cutting < Old French: act of cutting, a cut, derivative of trenchier to cut < Vulgar Latin *trincāre , for Latin truncāre to lop; truncate

Word History and Origins

Origin of trench¹

C14: from Old French trenche something cut, from trenchier to cut, from Latin truncāre to cut off

Example Sentences

Now, let’s return to the trenches and talk about what’s going on up front.

From Washington Post

Ranch owner Kevin Halverson, 70, spent the morning shoveling snow out of the trench.

From Outside Online

I’m looking at a trench on part of a 7,500-acre ranch outside Big Timber, Montana.

From Outside Online

As trenches flooded, bomb craters on the battlefield filled with muddy water and swallowed artillery, horses, and people.

From Popular-Science

If there are a half-dozen “Floridas,” one of them is sure to be Wisconsin, home to some of the closest elections and nastiest partisan trench warfare of the past decade.

From Ozy

You don't bag something and leave it by the trench while you go back to the truck for your lunch.

From The Daily Beast

Early airpower theorists were not only repelled by trench warfare.

From The Daily Beast

The guys that I was partnering with early on wanted the logo to be a guy opening his trench coat.

From The Daily Beast

The goal was to get a human being to the bottom of the Mariana Trench for the first time since Cameron was a 5-year-old.

From The Daily Beast

And the highlight for me was touching down at the bottom of the trench.

From The Daily Beast

No word of the bombs and trench mortars I asked for six weeks ago, but the "bayonets" are coming in liberally now.

From Project Gutenberg

I asked him if that amounted to one shell per yard and he said the whole length of the trench was less than 100 yards.

From Project Gutenberg

The band took up a position in an old Spanish trench and played as the troops filed past along the beach.

From Project Gutenberg

The Anzacs are very much depressed to hear they are to get no more bombs for their six Japanese trench mortars.

From Project Gutenberg

On their march the Americans had to fight a hidden foe who slipped from trench to trench, or found safety in the woods.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• dike
• foxhole
• gorge
• gully
• moat
• pit
• trough
• waterway