dredge

¹ American  

[drej] / drɛdʒ /

noun

• dredges
  plural

1. Also called dredging machine. any of various powerful machines for dredging up or removing earth, as from the bottom of a river, by means of a scoop, a series of buckets, a suction pipe, or the like.

2. a barge on which such a machine is mounted.

3. a dragnet or other contrivance for gathering material or objects from the bottom of a river, bay, etc.

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verb (used with object)

dredged, dredging

1. to clear out with a dredge; remove sand, silt, mud, etc., from the bottom of.

2. to take, catch, or gather with a dredge; obtain or remove by a dredge.

verb (used without object)

dredged, dredging

1. to use a dredge.

verb phrase

1. dredge up

   1. to unearth or bring to notice.

      We dredged up some old toys from the bottom of the trunk.

   2. to locate and reveal by painstaking investigation or search.

      Biographers excel at dredging up little known facts.

dredge ² American  

[drej] / drɛdʒ /

verb (used with object)

Cooking.

dredged, dredging

1. to sprinkle or coat with some powdered substance, especially flour.

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dredge ¹ British  

/ drɛdʒ /

noun

1. Also called: dredger. a machine, in the form of a bucket ladder, grab, or suction device, used to remove material from a riverbed, channel, etc

2. another name for dredger 1

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verb

1. to remove (material) from a riverbed, channel, etc, by means of a dredge

2. (tr) to search for (a submerged object) with or as if with a dredge; drag

dredge ² British  

/ drɛdʒ /

verb

1. to sprinkle or coat (food) with flour, sugar, etc

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• dredges
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of dredge¹

First recorded in 1425–75; late Middle English ( Scots ) dreg, as in dreg-boat “dredge boat,” probably an irregular formation of Old English dragan draw ( def. ); see also dray ( def. )

Origin of dredge²

First recorded in 1590–1600; verb use of dredge (now obsolete or dialectal) “mixture of grains,” from late Middle English drag(g)e, dreg(g)e, draget(e), apparently to be identified with Middle English drag(g)e, dragie “sweet sauce, confection; mixture of grains, mix or company of people,” from Anglo-French drag(g)é, dragee, from Old French dragie, dragé; possibly related to dragée

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Explanation

When a harbor becomes filled with silt, you dredge it to make it navigable again. You scoop out the mud with a big shovel, which is also called a dredge, and make a channel deep enough for ships. Dredges have been at work in the Hudson River for years getting rid of industrial toxins, dredging up the contaminated sediment and loading it into barges to be carried away. If your car rolled into a lake by mistake, you might be able to hire a dredge that can be dragged across the bottom of the lake to recover things that have fallen in. You can dredge up memories, too, which usually entails reminding people of unpleasant ones they’d rather forget.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

dredge dredges dredged dredging

There is no shortage of ideas to dredge from this truth, about how we use art to cope, sometimes to our own detriment.

From Salon ● Oct. 5, 2026

During one particularly tough patch that summer, the media managed to dredge up every stupid thing I had ever said publicly.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 5, 2026

They then retrieved volcanic rock samples from several parts of the trench system using a chain bag dredge.

From Science Daily ● Feb. 23, 2026

Just five years ago, the same agency—then under former Gov. Andrew Cuomo—had denied the permit, citing the likelihood that it would dredge up toxic material.

From Barron's ● Nov. 7, 2025

I say, with as much venom as I can dredge up.

From "Cat's Eye" by Margaret Atwood

Every known specimen was brought up by accident, caught in trawl nets or dredges working the seafloor between about 50 and 125 meters down.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 30, 2026

Some of the scenes the author dredges up from his deep trawl through Stasi archives are bizarre.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 12, 2026

Such was the lack of food, another crewmate told the court that they had resorted to eating fish and octopus and fish caught by the dredges to survive.

From BBC ● Jun. 8, 2026

But, as big moves so often do, the journey dredges up long-buried feelings of discontent and malaise between the couple.

From Salon ● Jul. 30, 2025

She dredges more of the chicken on a plate of flour.

From "The Namesake" by Jhumpa Lahiri

And if the dredged mud isn't contained properly, it spills into nearby waters.

From BBC ● Jul. 30, 2026

On April 19, Enchassi felt shaken by the bomb that had just exploded in Oklahoma City, and by the memories it dredged up of his childhood in Lebanon.

From Slate ● Apr. 19, 2026

For decades, the Baxter Road owners proposed various defenses to delay the inevitable, from a rock wall to dumping dredged sand, a plan rejected by fishermen.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 8, 2026

"Not only were oysters harvested for food from the earliest days of colonization, but the reefs themselves were dredged and the shells crushed and burned to make lime for cement and mortar," she says.

From Science Daily ● Apr. 6, 2026

It had been dredged out and it was a busy harbor.

From "Life Is So Good" by George Dawson

But the boom in new products is also dredging up some uncomfortable memories: The previous peak for thematic ETF launches arrived in 2021, as the COVID-era market mania was reaching its crescendo.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 24, 2026

The effect is something like uncanny sketch comedy, dredging laughs from Hansen’s stilted expressions and intense demeanor, regardless of a scene’s emotional gravity.

From Salon ● Sep. 26, 2026

I spent fruitless hours testing my employer’s patience, neglecting my more immediate work while dredging up zero-retweet Twitter posts from the early 2010s.

From Slate ● Sep. 22, 2026

Many neighbors are hopeful that the city will proceed with a plan for dredging that would dramatically expand the beach and provide more of a barrier against the waves.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 9, 2026

He knew its flaws, its many flaws, but believed that with a lot of deft dredging and sculpting, the park could be transformed into a landscape unlike any that had ever seated an exposition.

From "The Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson

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