trench

¹ American  

[trench] / trɛntʃ /

noun

1. 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.

2. trenches, a system of such excavations, with their embankments, etc.

3. a deep furrow, ditch, or cut.

4. Oceanography. a long, steep-sided, narrow depression in the ocean floor.

---

verb (used with object)

1. to surround or fortify with trenches; entrench.

2. to cut a trench in.

3. to set or place in a trench.

4. to form (a furrow, ditch, etc.) by cutting into or through something.

5. to make a cut in; cut into; carve.

verb (used without object)

1. to dig a trench.

verb phrase

1. trench on / upon

   1. to encroach or infringe on.

   2. to come close to; verge on.

      His remarks were trenching on poor taste.

Trench ² American  

[trench] / trɛntʃ /

noun

1. Richard Chenevix 1807–86, English clergyman and scholar, born in Ireland.

---

trench British  

/ trɛntʃ /

noun

1. a deep ditch or furrow

2. a ditch dug as a fortification, having a parapet of the excavated earth

---

verb

1. to make a trench in (a place)

2. (tr) to fortify with a trench or trenches

3. to slash or be slashed

4. (intr; foll by on or upon) to encroach or verge

trench Scientific  

/ trĕnch /

1. 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.

---

Other Word Forms

• subtrench noun
• untrenched adjective

Etymology

Origin of trench

1350–1400; Middle English trenche path made by cutting < Old French: act of cutting, a cut, derivative of trenchier to cut < Vulgar Latin *trincāre , for Latin truncāre to lop; truncate

Example Sentences

If he goes full trench coat, like Neo in The Matrix, consider taking profits.

From Barron's

Betts Recruiting’s Kellenberger said it would take time and a gradual shift in perception for more engineers to consider throwing themselves out into the trenches.

From The Wall Street Journal

His contention that bombing industrial centers would lead to a speedy victory was seen by many as a response to World War I, and the long slog of trench warfare.

From The Wall Street Journal

He is wearing a trench coat and a pair of horn-rimmed glasses and is holding a manila folder full of official-looking papers.

From Literature

In 1918, from the trenches on the Macedonian front, a 31-year-old German artilleryman sent his mother postcards covered in fragments of a philosophical system.

From The Wall Street Journal

Related Words

• dike
• foxhole
• gorge
• gully
• moat
• pit
• trough
• waterway