Trench
Trench , transitive verb
[Old French trenchier to cut, French trancher; akin to Pr. trencar, trenchar, Sp. trinchar, Italian 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.
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.
2.
(Fortification) 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.
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 , intransitive verb
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?
2.
To have direction; to aim or tend. [Rare] — Bacon
Like powerful armies, trenching at a town
By slow and silent, but resistless, sap.
Collocations (1)
To trench at , to make trenches against; to approach by trenches, as a town in besieging it. [Obsolete]
Trench , noun
[Old English trenche, French tranchée. See Trench, transitive verb]
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. [Obsolete]
In a trench, forth in the park, goeth she.
3.
(Fortification) 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.
Collocations (3)
To open the trenches (Military) , to begin to dig or to form the lines of approach.
Trench cavalier (Fortification) , 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.