Word.ws English Dictionary

detrenching

detrenching is the present participle and gerund of detrench.

Meaning of detrench

Verb (1)

detrench (third-person singular simple present detrenches, present participle detrenching, simple past and past participle detrenched)

  1. To cut off or slice; to sever.
    • That I as well may furnish good mens needs / With bleſſings, as detrench th'abuſed ſtore / Of thankles caytiffes; crowne true vertues deeds / With honour, and on vice my vengeance poure.1653, William Basse, “Urania, the Woman in the Moone: In Four Cantoes, or Quarters”, in J[ohn] P[ayne] C[ollier], editor, The Pastorals and Other Workes of William Basse. […] (Miscellaneous Tracts...
  2. To render something that was entrenched less thoroughly established.
    • They found themselves caught up in a mesh of arguments about entrenching, re-entrenching and detrenching, with all the relevant permutations and combinations.1955, The Forum, page 2

Verb (2)

detrench (third-person singular simple present detrenches, present participle detrenching, simple past and past participle detrenched)

  1. To dig out and remove from a trench.
    • In some cases these cables still become damaged and this results in lengths of cable having to be detrenched.1979, Institution of Electrical Engineers. Electronics Division, International Conference on Submarine Telecommunications Systems
  2. To force (an army) out of trenches, or to be so forced out.
    • Verey lights, no longer needed by the detrenched army, soared with them, descending in wavy pools of radiance.1936, Henry Williamson, The Flax of Dream: A Novel in Four Books, page 748

Questions about detrenching

What is detrenching the present participle and gerund of?
Detrenching is the present participle and gerund of detrench.

Words near detrenching in the dictionary

  1. detrempe
  2. detrempes
  3. detrench
  4. detrenched
  5. detrenches
  6. detrenching
  7. detrend
  8. detrended
  9. detrending
  10. detrendization
  11. detrendize

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: detrenching (page history and authors); detrench (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “detrenching.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/detrenching. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.