What's the difference between ditch and trench?

Ditch


Definition:

  • (n.) A trench made in the earth by digging, particularly a trench for draining wet land, for guarding or fencing inclosures, or for preventing an approach to a town or fortress. In the latter sense, it is called also a moat or a fosse.
  • (n.) Any long, narrow receptacle for water on the surface of the earth.
  • (v. t.) To dig a ditch or ditches in; to drain by a ditch or ditches; as, to ditch moist land.
  • (v. t.) To surround with a ditch.
  • (v. t.) To throw into a ditch; as, the engine was ditched and turned on its side.
  • (v. i.) To dig a ditch or ditches.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) This year's IPO frenzy has shown further signs of fading, as yet another company ditched plans to list its shares on the London stock exchange.
  • (2) But the last people you'd rely on are those who dug the ditch and shoved you in – particularly when they're still building and still shoving.
  • (3) Plans for the pipeline to come onshore in Brindisi were ditched following local opposition.
  • (4) But in a last-ditch effort, his lawyers lodged an appeal for clemency on Monday morning.
  • (5) Now he must go | Momodou Musa Touray Read more As midday and 4pm deadlines to go passed on Friday, two regional leaders arrived in the capital, Banjul, in a last-ditch diplomatic effort to persuade him to step down.
  • (6) In Barcelona, where last-ditch negotiations are taking place, it became clear today the best hope for Copenhagen is a "politically binding" agreement, which rich countries hope will have all the key elements of the final deal, including specific targets and timetables for greenhouse gas emissions cuts and money for poor countries to cope with climate change.
  • (7) In a last-ditch attempt to overturn the award of the west coast rail franchise to FirstGroup, Virgin Trains co-owner Sir Richard Branson has offered to run the service "for free" to allow time for parliamentary scrutiny of the decision.
  • (8) Time to scrap all honours everywhere, including UK.” Australians had their chance to ditch the monarchy in 1999.
  • (9) By removing the safeguards on [the total number of] hours [a trainee medic can be told to work], doctors will be working unsafe hours, leading to poor patient care.” One source involved in helping to formulate Hunt’s new offer said it represented a serious move to break the impasse over the pay and conditions of NHS medics and is his “last-ditch attempt to resolve the junior doctors dispute” before the ballot produces a widely expected mandate for action.
  • (10) phi PS5, a double-stranded DNA bacteriophage of Pseudomonas stutzeri JM604 that adsorbs specifically to the outer-membrane protein NosA, was isolated from stagnant irrigation ditch water.
  • (11) We will have another financial shock – it’s inevitable.” Gary Greenwood, analyst at Shore Capital, described the results as “dismal” and noted the bank was ditching targets previously set to measure returns to shareholders.
  • (12) Geoff Reid Bradford • Is the Jeremy Hunt who stated that “We need to have an honest discussion about the purpose of A&E departments” ( Hunt ditches target as A&E crisis deepens , 10 January) the same Jeremy Hunt who took his own child to A&E with a minor illness because he didn’t want to wait for a GP appointment?
  • (13) The chancellor stressed that Britain’s relationship with the EU would remain unchanged for the time being – and ditched the idea, launched alongside his predecessor Alistair Darling during the campaign – that an emergency budget would be necessary within weeks, as Brexit slams the brakes on the economy.
  • (14) 5) Playing dirty helps win the day Three days before the vote, a panicking no campaign organised a last-ditch rally at the Place du Canada in Montreal.
  • (15) The head of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) yesterday urged diplomats to stop bickering about a mini package of liberalisation designed to boost global commerce and warned of serious damage to the 20-year-old institution if last-ditch talks failed.
  • (16) A humiliated Trierweiler was publicly ditched by Hollande in a terse 18-word statement announcing that he was “putting an end” to their “shared life”.
  • (17) He took Jessica's mobile out of her pocket; he carried their bodies down the stairs and, after checking no one was around, bundled them into the cramped boot of his car, bending their legs to fit them in; he collected petrol and bin bags (to protect his feet and thus conceal evidence); he drove to Lakenheath and found a lonely track; he got out where the vegetation grew thickly and he rolled the two girls down into the ditch; he climbed into the ditch and cut off their clothing - their red football shirts and their tracksuit trousers, their knickers, Holly's black bra which she and her mother had bought the day before - and then he poured petrol over their bodies and threw on a match.
  • (18) On information known publicly, one Tamil man was detained when he came to Australia because he was a lawyer for the LTTE’s civil administration, another because he dug ditches on LTTE orders for civilian Tamils to shelter in during air raids by government aircraft.
  • (19) The railway staff left to pick up the pieces are being set up as scapegoats with ludicrous claims about Spanish practices and out-of-control pay, but our members have already been paying with their jobs as the privateers ditch frontline staff to maintain profits.
  • (20) The US secretary of state was due to hold late-night talks with his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, in a last-ditch attempt to break the deadlock on unresolved issues.

Trench


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To cut; to form or shape by cutting; to make by incision, hewing, or the like.
  • (v. t.) To fortify by cutting a ditch, and raising a rampart or breastwork with the earth thrown out of the ditch; to intrench.
  • (v. t.) To cut furrows or ditches in; as, to trench land for the purpose of draining it.
  • (v. t.) To dig or cultivate very deeply, usually by digging parallel contiguous trenches in succession, filling each from the next; as, to trench a garden for certain crops.
  • (v. i.) To encroach; to intrench.
  • (v. i.) To have direction; to aim or tend.
  • (v. t.) A long, narrow cut in the earth; a ditch; as, a trench for draining land.
  • (v. t.) An alley; a narrow path or walk cut through woods, shrubbery, or the like.
  • (v. t.) An excavation made during a siege, for the purpose of covering the troops as they advance toward the besieged place. The term includes the parallels and the approaches.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Its boot always held a bivouac bag, a trenching tool of some sort and a towel and trunks, in case he passed somewhere interesting to sleep, dig, or swim.
  • (2) The RSC’s Erica Whyman stages a story inspired by a local man, the Royal Warwickshire Regiment’s Captain Bruce Bairnsfather, who was known as the cartoonist of the trenches and survived the war to work at the original Shakespeare Memorial theatre.
  • (3) Stephen Fisher, one of the archaeologists recording the site, says digging the trenches would also have been training for the men, who would soon have to do it for real, and the little slit trenches scattered across the site, just big enough for one man to cower in, might represent their first efforts.
  • (4) Upon segregation of the conidium from the phialide cell by conidial wall formation, 'trench-like' invaginations gradually appeared in the plasma membrane and a disorganized rodlet pattern was formed on the outer surface of the maturing conidial wall.
  • (5) The field was taped off while a mechanical digger clawed at the ground, making parallel trenches in the sandy earth.
  • (6) Scores of archaeologists working in a waterlogged trench through the wettest summer and coldest winter in living memory have recovered more than 10,000 objects from Roman London , including writing tablets, amber, a well with ritual deposits of pewter, coins and cow skulls, thousands of pieces of pottery, a unique piece of padded and stitched leather – and the largest collection of lucky charms in the shape of phalluses ever found on a single site.
  • (7) He sees HS2 as a "huge trench across the country where we can learn an awful lot about new sites.
  • (8) But his attitude gradually hardened, particularly after he reached the trenches.
  • (9) "It looks solid," said Jean Pascal Zanders, a Belgian expert who runs a blog on chemical weapons called The Trench .
  • (10) What they learn can be summed up in one word: trenches.
  • (11) The archaeologists had to wear slippers to preserve the site which, at the bottom of a two-metre trench, picked up much damp.
  • (12) A variety of cold exposure injuries were discussed, including frostnip, chilblains, trench foot, frostbite, and hypothermia.
  • (13) Alan Trench, an academic specialising in devolution and adviser to expert government commissions, said: "It's clear that Labour voters generally have concerns about how things are at the moment.
  • (14) But if trapped deep inside wreckage or an underwater trench, the effectiveness can be hindered.
  • (15) French troops wearing an early form of gas mask in the trenches during the second Battle of Ypres in 1915.
  • (16) Keeping within the string lines of your footprint, dig a trench about 15cm deep and lay the foundation stones flat and level.
  • (17) But according to Wayne Cocroft, an English Heritage expert on wartime archaeology, although 20 other trench training sites have been recorded across Britain, many have been damaged by later development, and both the scale and the state of preservation of the Gosport complex is exceptional.
  • (18) Working in a location to the southeast of Kathmandu, Paul Tapponnier, an earth scientist at the Earth Observatory of Singapore , and his team dug trenches across the fault and used charcoal to date when it had moved.
  • (19) There are no trenches, barbed wire fences or tank traps.
  • (20) Accessory glandular tissues were atrophied and debris filled the trenches of the papillae.