(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.
(1) The hostility Said encountered from pro-Israeli circles in New York was predictable, given his trenchant attacks on Israeli violations of the human rights of Palestinians and his outspoken condemnations of US policies in the Middle East.
(2) He went with a bang not a whimper: two of his last contributions to the New Republic were a trenchant critique of the history of the six-day war by Michael Oren, now Israeli ambassador to Washington, and an evisceration of Koba the Dread, Martin Amis's purported book on Stalin.
(3) Yet with growing numbers of civilian deaths and escalating violence, many British Syrians have become more trenchant in putting forward pro- or anti-regime views.
(4) This year she won plaudits from fellow peers and disability activists alike over a series of trenchant interventions on the controversial welfare reform bill .
(5) "If there is one thing that has been wrong with this World Cup it is Fifa’s ridiculous insistence that teams wear predominantly light or dark strips," begins Stewart Todd, before taking a deep breath and resuming his diatribe, utilising both the 'relentless' and 'trenchant' styles.
(6) Ruggie’s report was welcomed by Sharan Burrow, general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation and a trenchant critic of the lack of progress by Qatar on the migrant workers issue.
(7) Jones told Turnbull that because he had had dinner with Palmer, a trenchant critic of Abbott, “people” were suggesting that “precisely because you have no hope ever of being the leader again – you have got that into your head, no hope ever – that because of that you are happy to chuck a few bombs around that might blow up Abbott a bit, that is what they are saying.” Turnbull replied that it was Jones who was undermining the Abbott government and “doing the work of the Labor party”, a charge not usually levelled at the Sydney announcer who is an ardent supporter of the prime minister.
(8) He was speaking to The Independent, which reports: Mr Fisher trenchantly defends those decisions made at the height of the crisis.
(9) That is not only because of McDonnell’s trenchant hard-left economic views, but also because of his combative approach.
(10) The White House, fearing the impact of a European disaster on Barack Obama's re-election campaign, is becoming more trenchant in its criticism of the eurozone and its demands of the Germans.
(11) Former centre-right president Nicolas Sarkozy was reported to have supplied his own trenchant critique, even as Brignoles voters were preparing to elect Lopez in the second round.
(12) The comments from Maria Hutchings, described by Lib Dems as a Sarah Palin figure for her trenchant views and tendency to speak off-message, provoked a storm of protest as political opponents and state-educated celebrities, said she had insulted state schools, including two local ones with glowing Ofsted reports.
(13) I don't for a minute accept the logic of reforms that put individuals in private debt to avoid public debt but even the most trenchant libertarian can find fault when those same reforms end up costing the Treasury more money.
(14) He chose to release a trenchantly-worded judgment, explaining why had made the initial ruling to keep the identity of the footballer secret, in which he concluded there was "ample reason not to trust" the young woman.
(15) For old hands at the negotiations, such as Yvo de Boer, a former Dutch civil servant and UN climate chief known for his trenchant views, the conferences have become trapped in an endless cycle of repeats.
(16) But Abbott’s trenchant opposition to the fund is seen as an impediment to any contribution.
(17) As a result, general inequality has been becoming more grievous with every year that passes, and without a bleat from the leaders of the party who once spoke up so trenchantly and characteristically for greater equality.
(18) Rival Palestinian groups have hailed the signing of a reconciliation agreement that could change the parameters of the search for Middle East peace, amid trenchant opposition from Israel.
(19) The faith-based failure to plan for the invasion’s aftermath, rightly damned in trenchant terms by Sir John, was the most catastrophic for the Iraqi people, and indeed for the British service personnel in harm’s way.
(20) He has been the most prominent of black British intellectuals since the 1960s, a prominent figure of the Open University and among the most trenchant critics of Thatcherism.