trough

American  

[trawf, trof, trawth, troth] / trɔf, trɒf, trɔθ, trɒθ /

noun

• troughs
  plural

1. 

   a long, narrow, open receptacle, usually boxlike in shape, used chiefly to hold water or food for animals.

2. any of several similarly shaped receptacles used for various commercial or household purposes.

3. a channel or conduit for conveying water, as a gutter under the eaves of a building for carrying away rainwater.

4. any long depression or hollow, as between two ridges or waves.

5. Oceanography. a long, wide, and deep depression in the ocean floor having gently sloping sides, wider and shallower than a trench.

6. Meteorology. an elongated area of relatively low pressure.

7. the lowest point, especially in an economic cycle.

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trough British  

/ trɒf /

noun

1. a narrow open container, esp one in which food or water for animals is put

2. a narrow channel, gutter, or gulley

3. a narrow depression either in the land surface, ocean bed, or between two successive waves

4. meteorol an elongated area of low pressure, esp an extension of a depression Compare ridge

5. a single or temporary low point; depression

6. physics the portion of a wave, such as a light wave, in which the amplitude lies below its average value

7. economics the lowest point or most depressed stage of the trade cycle

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verb

1. informal (intr) to eat, consume, or take greedily

trough Scientific  

/ trôf /

1. The part of a wave with the least magnitude; the lowest part of a wave.

2. Compare crest See more at wave

3. A narrow, elongated region of relatively low atmospheric pressure occurring at the ground surface or in the upper atmosphere, and often associated with a front.

4. Compare ridge

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• troughlike
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• troughs
  plural

Etymology

Origin of trough

First recorded before 900; Middle English; Old English trōh; cognate with Dutch, German, Old Norse trog

Explanation

If you live on a farm, you already know that a trough is what animals eat out of. The word actually refers to the shape of the container, and can mean anything that is low and hollowed out — like a curve on a graph or a depression in the ground. In the olden days, people, like animals, ate from troughs. Gradually, we got fancy enough to divide our food between bowls and plates, but there is some lingering connection between the idea of trough and rough, peasant living.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

trough troughs

That’s still about 7 million to 8 million barrels a day below pre-war levels, but 5 million to 6 million barrels a day above a March trough, Goldman Sachs said.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 31, 2026

That moisture is being pulled northward by an upper-level trough — a low-pressure area in the atmosphere — and the resulting instability may produce thunderstorms and showers, she said.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 27, 2026

The index lost 40 percent between hitting its last high and its recent trough.

From Barron's ● Aug. 13, 2026

The effect was electric, sending the stock up 140% in the year following that trough.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 10, 2026

Seeing how my hands were occupied, my face sort of broke the fall, hitting the wall first, a millisecond before my foot slipped into the brimming trough.

From "Anthem of a Reluctant Prophet" by Joanne Proulx

Regions corresponding to the crests contain more electrons, while the troughs contain fewer.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 20, 2026

Spikes in that ratio have flagged short-term stock peaks in the last two decades, as plunges flagged several market troughs.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 30, 2026

Mexican government forecasters say troughs - small-scale low pressure features - are expected in the middle and upper layers of the atmosphere over central parts of Mexico on Sunday, making the atmosphere very unstable.

From BBC ● Jul. 4, 2026

What the pair found was a desert highway that rolls up and down, like an asphalt serpent, with deadly blind peaks and treacherous hidden troughs.

From Barron's ● Mar. 8, 2026

We would exchange remedies and try to outdo each other in the recital of our physical miseries; gently we would complain, our voices soft and minor key and mournful as pigeons in the eaves troughs.

From "The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood

Related Words

• trench