English Dictionary

TRENCH

Pronunciation (US): Play  (GB): Play

IPA (US): 

 Dictionary entry overview: What does trench mean? 

TRENCH (noun)
  The noun TRENCH has 3 senses:

1. a ditch dug as a fortification having a parapet of the excavated earthplay

2. a long steep-sided depression in the ocean floorplay

3. any long ditch cut in the groundplay

  Familiarity information: TRENCH used as a noun is uncommon.


TRENCH (verb)
  The verb TRENCH has 6 senses:

1. impinge or infringe uponplay

2. fortify by surrounding with trenchesplay

3. cut or carve deeply intoplay

4. set, plant, or bury in a trenchplay

5. cut a trench in, as for drainageplay

6. dig a trench or trenchesplay

  Familiarity information: TRENCH used as a verb is common.


 Dictionary entry details 


TRENCH (noun)


Sense 1

Meaning:

A ditch dug as a fortification having a parapet of the excavated earth

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("trench" is a kind of...):

ditch (a long narrow excavation in the earth)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "trench"):

approach trench; communication trench (a trench that provides protected passage between the rear and front lines of a defensive position)

fire trench (a trench especially constructed for the delivery of small-arms fire)

fosse; moat (ditch dug as a fortification and usually filled with water)

slit trench (narrow trench for shelter in battle)

Holonyms ("trench" is a part of...):

entrenchment; intrenchment (an entrenched fortification; a position protected by trenches)

Derivation:

trench (fortify by surrounding with trenches)


Sense 2

Meaning:

A long steep-sided depression in the ocean floor

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural objects (not man-made)

Synonyms:

deep; oceanic abyss; trench

Hypernyms ("trench" is a kind of...):

depression; natural depression (a sunken or depressed geological formation)

Instance hyponyms:

Atacama Trench (a depression in the floor of the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Chile)

Bougainville Trench (a depression in the floor of the Pacific Ocean between New Guinea and the Solomon Islands)

Japan Trench (a depression in the floor of the Pacific Ocean to the northeast of Japan that reaches depths of 30,000 feet)

Nares Deep (a depression in the floor of the Atlantic Ocean to the north of Haiti and Puerto Rico)


Sense 3

Meaning:

Any long ditch cut in the ground

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("trench" is a kind of...):

ditch (a long narrow excavation in the earth)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "trench"):

furrow (a long shallow trench in the ground (especially one made by a plow))

Derivation:

trench (dig a trench or trenches)

trench (cut a trench in, as for drainage)

trench (set, plant, or bury in a trench)


TRENCH (verb)

 Conjugation: 
Present simple: I / you / we / they trench  Listen to US pronunciation  Listen to GB pronunciation ... he / she / it trenches  Listen to US pronunciation  Listen to GB pronunciation
Past simple: trenched  Listen to US pronunciation  Listen to GB pronunciation
Past participle: trenched  Listen to US pronunciation  Listen to GB pronunciation
-ing form: trenching  Listen to US pronunciation  Listen to GB pronunciation


Sense 1

Meaning:

Impinge or infringe upon

Classified under:

Verbs of political and social activities and events

Synonyms:

encroach; entrench; impinge; trench

Context example:

This matter entrenches on other domains

Hypernyms (to "trench" is one way to...):

take advantage; trespass (make excessive use of)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something


Sense 2

Meaning:

Fortify by surrounding with trenches

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Context example:

He trenched his military camp

Hypernyms (to "trench" is one way to...):

fort; fortify (enclose by or as if by a fortification)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

trench (a ditch dug as a fortification having a parapet of the excavated earth)


Sense 3

Meaning:

Cut or carve deeply into

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Context example:

letters trenched into the stone

Hypernyms (to "trench" is one way to...):

cut (separate with or as if with an instrument)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

trencher (a wooden board or platter on which food is served or carved)


Sense 4

Meaning:

Set, plant, or bury in a trench

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Context example:

trench the vegetables

Hypernyms (to "trench" is one way to...):

lay; place; pose; position; put; set (put into a certain place or abstract location)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s somebody

Derivation:

trench (any long ditch cut in the ground)


Sense 5

Meaning:

Cut a trench in, as for drainage

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Synonyms:

ditch; trench

Context example:

trench the fields

Hypernyms (to "trench" is one way to...):

dig; excavate; hollow (remove the inner part or the core of)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

trench (any long ditch cut in the ground)

trencher (someone who digs trenches)


Sense 6

Meaning:

Dig a trench or trenches

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Context example:

The National Guardsmen were sent out to trench

Hypernyms (to "trench" is one way to...):

dig; dig out (create by digging)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s

Derivation:

trench (any long ditch cut in the ground)

trencher (someone who digs trenches)


 Context examples 


These results can be extrapolated to predict the conditions in other ocean trenches worldwide.

(Seismic study reveals huge amount of water dragged into Earth’s interior, National Science Foundation)

The microbes that live in subsurface realms such as seafloor trenches play a significant role in storing the carbon.

(Major deep carbon sink linked to microbes at volcanic island chains, National Science Foundation)

Tectonic pushing and pulling of the lunar crust also sculpt curved hills called lobate scarps and shallow trenches known as graben.

(Study Finds New Wrinkles on Earth's Moon, NASA)

“We have all heard of your siege of Capua, and how you ran up your ship’s guns without trenches or parallels, and fired point-blank through the embrasures.”

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

B. quintana causes trench fever.

(Bartonella quintana, NCI Thesaurus)

It was thus rather the exacting nature of my aspirations than any particular degradation in my faults, that made me what I was, and, with even a deeper trench than in the majority of men, severed in me those provinces of good and ill which divide and compound man’s dual nature.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

One of eight or ten projections from the dorsum of the tongue forming a row anterior to and parallel with the sulcus terminalis; each papilla is surrounded by a circular trench (fossa) having a slightly raised outer wall (vallum); on the sides of the vallate papilla and the opposed margin of the vallum are numerous taste buds.

(Circumvallate Papilla, NCI Thesaurus)

It completely conveyed the idea of a man who had been born, not to say with a silver spoon, but with a scaling-ladder, and had gone on mounting all the heights of life one after another, until now he looked, from the top of the fortifications, with the eye of a philosopher and a patron, on the people down in the trenches.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Scientists believe that most of the water that goes down at a trench comes back into the atmosphere as water vapor when volcanoes erupt.

(Seismic study reveals huge amount of water dragged into Earth’s interior, National Science Foundation)

Taken by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC), the images reveal wrinkle ridges - curved hills and shallow trenches created by a lunar surface that is contracting as the Moon loses heat and shrinks.

(Study Finds New Wrinkles on Earth's Moon, NASA)



 Learn English with... Proverbs 
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"Close the door from which the wind blows and relax." (Arabic proverb)

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