ditch

[dich]

noun

1. a long, narrow excavation made in the ground by digging, as for draining or irrigating land; trench.

2. any open passage or trench, as a natural channel or waterway.

verb (used with object)

1. to dig a ditch or ditches in or around.

2. to derail (a train) or drive or force (an automobile, bus, etc.) into a ditch.

3. to crash-land on water and abandon (an airplane).

4. Slang.

   1. to get rid of.

      I ditched that old hat of yours.

   2. to escape from.

      He ditched the cops by driving down an alley.

   3. to absent oneself from (school or a class) without permission or an acceptable reason.

verb (used without object)

1. to dig a ditch.

2. (of an aircraft or its crew) to crash-land in water and abandon the sinking aircraft.

3. Slang.,  to be truant; play hooky.

ditch

¹

/ dɪtʃ /

noun

1. a narrow channel dug in the earth, usually used for drainage, irrigation, or as a boundary marker

2. any small, natural waterway

3. a bank made of earth excavated from and placed alongside a drain or stream

4. informal,  either of the gutters at the side of a tenpin bowling lane

5. a last resort or place of last defence

verb

1. to make a ditch or ditches in (a piece of ground)

2. (intr) to edge with a ditch

3. informal,  to crash or be crashed, esp deliberately, as to avoid more unpleasant circumstances

   he had to ditch the car

4. slang,  (tr) to abandon or discard

   to ditch a girlfriend

5. informal,  to land (an aircraft) on water in an emergency

6. slang,  (tr) to evade

   to ditch the police

Ditch

²

/ dɪtʃ /

noun

1. an informal name for the Tasman Sea

Other Word Forms

• ditchless adjective
• ditcher noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of ditch¹

before 900; 1940–45 ditch for def. 5, 1885–90 ditch for def. 6, 1955–60 ditch for def. 9; Middle English dich, Old English dīc; cognate with German Teich. See dike ¹

Word History and Origins

Origin of ditch¹

Old English dīc; related to Old Saxon dīk, Old Norse dīki, Middle High German tīch dyke, pond, Latin fīgere to stick, see _dyke ¹

Idioms and Phrases

see last-ditch effort.

Example Sentences

“When something goes wrong in life, having your deductible covered is essential to keeping your financial life out of the ditch,” they write on their website.

Read more on MarketWatch

Kast has pledged to build ditches along Chile's northern border with Peru and Bolivia, as well as mass deportations of undocumented migrants and people who entered the country illegally.

Read more on BBC

—Sterling fell to a two-and-a-half-year low against the euro after a report that the U.K. government will ditch plans to raise income taxes in the Nov. 26 budget.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Samira Abdallah Bachir, 29, said she and her three young children had to climb down into the ditch to escape, negotiating the morass of bodies "so we wouldn't step on them".

Read more on Barron's

Around 2018 when a raft of fashion houses joined everyone else in ditching their serif logos for wingless alternatives, something flipped.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Related Words

• abandon 
• discard 
• dispose of 
• dump 
• forsake 
• jettison 
• junk 
• scrap