tunnel

[tuhn-l]

noun

an underground passage.

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

an approximately horizontal gallery or corridor in a mine.

the burrow of an animal.

Dialect. a funnel.

verb (used with object), tun·neled, tun·nel·ing or (especially British) tun·nelled, tun·nel·ling.

to construct a passageway through or under: to tunnel a mountain.

to make or excavate (a tunnel or underground passage): to tunnel a passage under a river.

to move or proceed by or as if by boring a tunnel: The river tunneled its way through the mountain.

to pierce or hollow out, as with tunnels.

verb (used without object), tun·neled, tun·nel·ing or (especially British) tun·nelled, tun·nel·ling.

to make a tunnel or tunnels: to tunnel through the Alps.

Origin of tunnel

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

Related formstun·nel·er; especially British, tun·nel·ler, nountun·nel·like, adjectivesub·tun·nel, nounun·tun·neled, adjectiveun·tun·nelled, adjective

tunnel effect

noun

Physics. a quantum-mechanical process by which a particle can pass through a potential energy barrier that is higher than the energy of the particle: first postulated to explain the escape of alpha particles from atomic nuclei.

Origin of tunnel effect

First recorded in 1930–35

Also called tun·nel·ing.

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Related Words for tunneling

shaft, mine, subway, hole, pit, channel, underpass, burrow, adit, tube, drift, passage, crosscut, penetrate, sap, excavate, undermine

Examples from the Web for tunneling

Contemporary Examples of tunneling

For centuries, people have been tunneling into the landscape, which proved especially adept at hiding those fleeing persecution.
The Secret Life of Cappadocia: Underground in the Turkish Rock Formations
Nina Strochlic
August 22, 2013

Historical Examples of tunneling

Then the French spent the next ten days in tunneling to Steenstraate.
The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII)
Various
Then, armed with their shovels, they began the work of tunneling to the station.
The White Desert
Courtney Ryley Cooper
“Brick and Jerry are tunneling this way,” said Hamp, to himself.
The Camp in the Snow
William Murray Graydon
They occasionally did so, but the risk did not keep anyone from tunneling.
Andersonville, Volume 3
John McElroy
Tunneling has been carried on quite extensively in the mining region.
History of the State of California
John T. Frost

British Dictionary definitions for tunneling

tunnel

noun

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

any passage or channel through or under something

a dialect word for funnel

obsolete the flue of a chimney

verb -nels, -nelling or -nelled or US -nels, -neling or -neled

(tr) to make or force (a way) through or under (something)to tunnel a hole in the wall; to tunnel the cliff

(intr; foll by through, under, etc) to make or force a way (through or under something)he tunnelled through the bracken

Derived Formstunneller or US tunneler, noun

Word Origin for tunnel

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

tunnel effect

noun

physics the phenomenon in which an object, usually an elementary particle, tunnels through a potential barrier even though it does not have sufficient energy to surmount the barrier. It is explained by wave mechanics and is the cause of alpha decay, field emission, and certain conduction processes in semiconductors

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

Word Origin and History for tunneling

tunnel

mid-15c., "funnel-shaped net for catching birds," from Middle French tonnelle "net," or tonel "cask," diminutive of Old French tonne "tun, cask for liquids," possibly from the same source as Old English tunne (see tun).

Sense of "tube, pipe" (1540s) developed in English and led to sense of "underground passage," which is first attested 1765, about five years after the first modern tunnel was built (on the Grand Trunk Canal in England). This sense subsequently has been borrowed into French (1878). The earlier native word for this was mine. Meaning "burrow of an animal" is from 1873. Tunnel vision first recorded 1949. The figurative phrase light at the end of the tunnel is attested from 1922.