Tunnel

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈtÊŒn(É™)l/
• Rhymes: -ÊŒnÉ™l

Origin

From Middle French tonnelle.

Full definition of tunnel

Noun

1. An underground or underwater passage.
2. A passage through or under some obstacle.
• 1922, Margery Williams, The Velveteen RabbitBut very soon he grew to like it, for the Boy used to talk to him, and made nice tunnels for him under the bedclothes that he said were like the burrows the real rabbits lived in.
3. A hole in the ground made by an animal, a burrow.
4. (computing, networking) A wrapper for a protocol that cannot otherwise be used because it is unsupported, blocked, or insecure.
5. A vessel with a broad mouth at one end, a pipe or tube at the other, for conveying liquor, fluids, etc., into casks, bottles, or other vessels; a funnel.
6. The opening of a chimney for the passage of smoke; a flue.
• SpenserAnd one great chimney, whose long tunnel thence
  The smoke forth threw.
7. (mining) A level passage driven across the measures, or at right angles to veins which it is desired to reach; distinguished from the drift, or gangway, which is led along the vein when reached by the tunnel.

Verb

1. (transitive) To make a tunnel through or under something, to burrow.
2. (intransitive) To make a tunnel.

Related terms

• light at the end of the tunnel
• tunnel head
• tunnel kiln
• tunneller
• tunnel net
• tunnel vision
• wind tunnel