trawl
noun
a strong fishing net for dragging along the sea bottom.
were trawling
-
past progressiveof trawl.past progressive
Used to describe an ongoing action or continuous state that was happening at a specific time in the past.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Police were trawling through more than 20,000 videos given to authorities by members of the public to determine how many assailants were involved and the exact course of events.
From The Guardian ● Nov. 3, 2020
I ran into a couple of theatre programmers yesterday, who were trawling the fringe looking for shows.
From The Guardian ● Aug. 9, 2012
When the Japanese Government subsidized a three-year "salmon survey" of the Bering Sea in 1935, Alaska fishermen maintained that Japanese boats were trawling with heavy nets in all seasons, would soon exhaust the grounds.
From Time Magazine Archive
