trench
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.
trenches, a system of such excavations, with their embankments, etc.
a deep furrow, ditch, or cut.
Oceanography. a long, steep-sided, narrow depression in the ocean floor.
to surround or fortify with trenches; entrench.
to cut a trench in.
to set or place in a trench.
to form (a furrow, ditch, etc.) by cutting into or through something.
to make a cut in; cut into; carve.
to dig a trench.
trench on / upon
to encroach or infringe on.
to come close to; verge on: His remarks were trenching on poor taste.
Origin of trench
1Other words from trench
- subtrench, noun
- un·trenched, adjective
Words Nearby trench
Other definitions for Trench (2 of 2)
Richard Chen·e·vix [shen-uh-vee], /ˈʃɛn ə vi/, 1807–86, English clergyman and scholar, born in Ireland.
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
How to use trench in a sentence
Now, let’s return to the trenches and talk about what’s going on up front.
In modern defensive fronts, the names have been changed | Richard Johnson | November 23, 2020 | Washington PostRanch owner Kevin Halverson, 70, spent the morning shoveling snow out of the trench.
I’m looking at a trench on part of a 7,500-acre ranch outside Big Timber, Montana.
As trenches flooded, bomb craters on the battlefield filled with muddy water and swallowed artillery, horses, and people.
A climate anomaly may have worsened the 1918 pandemic and WWI | Kate Baggaley | September 25, 2020 | Popular-ScienceIf 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.
You don't bag something and leave it by the trench while you go back to the truck for your lunch.
Early airpower theorists were not only repelled by trench warfare.
Why the U.S. Army Is Stuck in the 19th Century | Bill Sweetman | September 2, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTThe guys that I was partnering with early on wanted the logo to be a guy opening his trench coat.
The Movie Nudity Maestro: Jim McBride on 15 Years of Mr. Skin and That Scarlett Johansson Scene | Marlow Stern | August 9, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTThe 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.
And the highlight for me was touching down at the bottom of the trench.
No word of the bombs and trench mortars I asked for six weeks ago, but the "bayonets" are coming in liberally now.
Gallipoli Diary, Volume I | Ian HamiltonI asked him if that amounted to one shell per yard and he said the whole length of the trench was less than 100 yards.
Gallipoli Diary, Volume I | Ian HamiltonThe band took up a position in an old Spanish trench and played as the troops filed past along the beach.
The Philippine Islands | John ForemanThe Anzacs are very much depressed to hear they are to get no more bombs for their six Japanese trench mortars.
Gallipoli Diary, Volume I | Ian HamiltonOn their march the Americans had to fight a hidden foe who slipped from trench to trench, or found safety in the woods.
The Philippine Islands | John Foreman
British Dictionary definitions for trench
/ (trɛntʃ) /
a deep ditch or furrow
a ditch dug as a fortification, having a parapet of the excavated earth
to make a trench in (a place)
(tr) to fortify with a trench or trenches
to slash or be slashed
(intr; foll by on or upon) to encroach or verge
Origin of trench
1- See also trenches
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Scientific definitions for trench
[ trĕnch ]
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.
The American Heritage® Science Dictionary Copyright © 2011. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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