Trench
Pronunciation
- IPA: /tɹɛntʃ/
- Rhymes: -ɛntʃ
Origin
From Old French trenche.
Full definition of trench
Noun
trench
(plural trenches)- A long, narrow ditch or hole dug in the ground.
- (military) A narrow excavation as used in warfare, as a cover for besieging or emplaced forces.
- (archaeology) A pit, usually rectangular with smooth walls and floor, excavated during an archaeological investigation.
- (informal) A trench coat.
- 1999, April 24, Xiphias Gladius
- I was the first person in my high school to wear a trench and fedora constantly, and Ben was one of the first to wear a black trench.
- 2007, Nina Garcia, The Little Black Book of Style, HarperCollins, as excerpted in Elle, October, page 138:A classic trench can work in any kind of weather and goes well with almost anything.
Derived terms
Related terms
Verb
- (usually followed by upon) To invade, especially with regard to the rights or the exclusive authority of another; to encroach.
- 1640, Ben Jonson, Underwoods, page 68:Shee is the Judge, Thou Executioner, Or if thou needs would'st trench upon her power, Thou mightst have yet enjoy'd thy crueltie, With some more thrift, and more varietie.
- I. TaylorDoes it not seem as if for a creature to challenge to itself a boundless attribute, were to trench upon the prerogative of the divine nature?
- 1949, Charles Austin Beard, American Government and Politics, page 16:He could make what laws he pleased, as long as those laws did not trench upon property rights.
- 2005, Carl von Clausewitz, J. J. Graham, On War, page 261:Our ideas, therefore, must trench upon the province of tactics.
- (military, infantry) To excavate an elongated pit for protection of soldiers and or equipment, usually perpendicular to the line of sight toward the enemy.
- ShakespeareNo more shall trenching war channel her fields.
- (archaeology) To excavate an elongated and often narrow pit.
- To have direction; to aim or tend.
- To cut; to form or shape by cutting; to make by incision, hewing, etc.
- ShakespeareThe wide wound that the boar had trenched
In his soft flank. - ShakespeareThis weak impress of love is as a figure
Trenched in ice, which with an hour's heat
Dissolves to water, and doth lose its form. - To cut furrows or ditches in.to trench land for the purpose of draining it
- To dig or cultivate very deeply, usually by digging parallel contiguous trenches in succession, filling each from the next.to trench a garden for certain crops----