Crossword Dictionary

What's The Definition Of Trench?

\Trench\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Trenched}; p. pr. & vb. n. {Trenching}.] [OF. trenchier to cut, F. trancher; akin to Pr. trencar, trenchar, Sp. trinchar, It. trinciare; of uncertain origin.] 1. To cut; to form or shape by cutting; to make by incision, hewing, or the like. The wide wound that the boar had trenched In his soft flank. --Shak. This 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. --Shak. 2. (Fort.) To fortify by cutting a ditch, and raising a rampart or breastwork with the earth thrown out of the ditch; to intrench. --Pope. No more shall trenching war channel her fields. --Shak. 3. To cut furrows or ditches in; as, to trench land for the purpose of draining it. 4. 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.
\Trench\, v. i. 1. To encroach; to intrench. Does 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? --I. Taylor. 2. To have direction; to aim or tend. [R.] --Bacon. {To trench at}, to make trenches against; to approach by trenches, as a town in besieging it. [Obs.] Like powerful armies, trenching at a town By slow and silent, but resistless, sap. --Young.
\Trench\, n. [OE. trenche, F. tranch['e]e. See {Trench}, v. t.] 1. A long, narrow cut in the earth; a ditch; as, a trench for draining land. --Mortimer. 2. An alley; a narrow path or walk cut through woods, shrubbery, or the like. [Obs.] In a trench, forth in the park, goeth she. --Chaucer. 3. (Fort.) 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. {To open the trenches} (Mil.), to begin to dig or to form the lines of approach. {Trench cavalier} (Fort.), an elevation constructed (by a besieger) of gabions, fascines, earth, and the like, about half way up the glacis, in order to discover and enfilade the covered way. {Trench plow}, or {Trench plough}, a kind of plow for opening land to a greater depth than that of common furrows.