tunnel

[tuhn-l]

noun

1. an underground passage.

2. a passageway, as for trains or automobiles, through or under an obstruction, as a city, mountain, river, harbor, or the like.

3. an approximately horizontal gallery or corridor in a mine.

4. the burrow of an animal.

5. Dialect.,  a funnel.

verb (used with object)

tunneled, tunneling , tunnelled, tunnelling .

1. to construct a passageway through or under.

   to tunnel a mountain.

2. to make or excavate (a tunnel or underground passage).

   to tunnel a passage under a river.

3. to move or proceed by or as if by boring a tunnel.

   The river tunneled its way through the mountain.

4. to pierce or hollow out, as with tunnels.

verb (used without object)

tunneled, tunneling , tunnelled, tunnelling .

1. to make a tunnel or tunnels.

   to tunnel through the Alps.

tunnel

/ ˈtʌnəl /

noun

1. an underground passageway, esp one for trains or cars that passes under a mountain, river, or a congested urban area

2. any passage or channel through or under something

3. a dialect word for funnel

4. obsolete,  the flue of a chimney

verb

1. (tr) to make or force (a way) through or under (something)

   to tunnel a hole in the wall

   to tunnel the cliff

2. (intr; foll by through, under, etc) to make or force a way (through or under something)

   he tunnelled through the bracken

Other Word Forms

• tunneller noun
• tunneler noun
• tunnellike adjective
• subtunnel noun
• untunneled adjective
• untunnelled adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of tunnel¹

1400–50; late Middle English tonel (noun) < Middle French tonele, tonnelle funnel-shaped net, feminine of tonnel cask, diminutive of tonne tun; -elle

Word History and Origins

Origin of tunnel¹

C15: from Old French tonel cask, from tonne tun, from Medieval Latin tonna barrel, of Celtic origin

Idioms and Phrases

see light at the end of the tunnel.

Example Sentences

The return of the surviving hostages from Hamas’s tunnels is a remarkable achievement, despite the price of releasing hundreds of convicted terrorists.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Workers have complained of chemical burns from the waste material generated by the tunneling process, and firefighters must decontaminate their equipment after conducting rescues from the project sites.

Read more on Salon

Hostages freed earlier said they were with him in Hamas’s underground tunnels, where he was kept in shackles and still had a piece of shrapnel lodged in his eye.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Quaker, 15, was one of five Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment horses spooked when rubble was dropped through a plastic tunnel while they were on an exercise in Belgravia on 24 April last year.

Read more on BBC

Three months later, they said a released hostage who spent time with him in a tunnel had told them how he had acted as a "spokesman to the captors" and "lifted everyone's spirits".

Read more on BBC

Related Words

• channel 
• hole 
• mine 
• pit 
• shaft 
• subway 
• underpass