entrenched

[en-trencht]

adjective

1. firmly or solidly established; placed in a position of strength.

   One of the most firmly entrenched ideas of masculinity is that men don't cry.

2. surrounded by trenches dug for defensive purposes.

   Government troops had finally been forced to abandon their entrenched positions, making them vulnerable to ground attack.

verb

1. the simple past tense and past participle of entrench.

Other Word Forms

• unentrenched adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of entrenched¹

entrench ( def. ) + -ed ² ( def. )

Example Sentences

She urged people to seek advice as soon as possible and said the cases she was seeing were becoming "more entrenched or more serious".

Read more on BBC

He vowed to institute reforms and clean up deeply entrenched corruption and cronyism.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

"When you're making the show, you're so entrenched in it that you forget how far it's come, and every season we put everything we have into it," Ross says.

Read more on BBC

Netanyahu has cast his indictment and trials as a political witch-hunt by left-wing political opponents deeply entrenched in the state’s bureaucracy.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Simultaneously, many of the teams people believed would be firmly entrenched at the top of the standings have struggled.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Related Words

• rooted