trench warfare

noun

1. combat in which each side occupies a system of protective trenches.

trench warfare

noun

1. a type of warfare in which opposing armies face each other in entrenched positions

trench warfare

1. Warfare marked by slow wearing down of the opposing forces and piecemeal gains at heavy cost. The term applies especially to World War I .

Word History and Origins

Origin of trench warfare¹

First recorded in 1915–20

Example Sentences

Instead, deepening partisan trench warfare will only worsen fights over the basic rules of voting, undermining the shared legitimacy of elections on which democracy depends.

From FiveThirtyEight

This produces a deeply polarizing and highly destructive form of partisan trench warfare that threatens to erode the very legitimacy of American democracy.

From FiveThirtyEight

Early airpower theorists were not only repelled by trench warfare.

From The Daily Beast

There was a lot of trench warfare between the Princesses Margaret and Michael, too.

From The Daily Beast

Illinois is a key front in a GOP contest that has become political trench warfare.

From The Daily Beast

The problem with the proportional system's chronic trench warfare this year is that it prolongs the misery of a lackluster field.

From The Daily Beast

There was and will never be another war like the Great War: hand-to-hand combat, trench warfare.

From The Daily Beast

Most people are rather ill after the trench warfare of the last two days.

From Project Gutenberg

But the trench warfare has rooted them to the spot for a weary time.

From Project Gutenberg

A shallow psychology (as the author points out), especially in these days of trench warfare!

From Project Gutenberg

She merely established another line of trench warfare among the high mountains of her picturesque north-eastern frontier.

From Project Gutenberg

The war on the Western front settled down to trench warfare.

From Project Gutenberg