ditch
/dɪt͡ʃ/
ditch noun: a trench; a long, shallow indentation, as for irrigation or drainage. Also the alternative form of deech.
Noun
ditch (plural ditches)
- A trench; a long, shallow indentation, as for irrigation or drainage.
- Digging ditches has long been considered one of the most demanding forms of manual labor.
- The truck careered off the road into a ditch.
- A raised bank of earth and the hedgerow on top.
- You flung a ditch on my vision
Of beauty, love and truth.
O stony grey soil of Monaghan
You burgled my bank of youth!c. 1947, Patrick Kavanagh, “Stony Grey Soil”, Poetry Selections, in Ireland Study Abroad, University Park, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University, archived from the original on 14 Mar 2021, page... - The original ditches were created by digging trenches, as boundaries and/or irrigation. But to the English, the ditch is the trench. Whereas in Ireland, the ditch is the raised bank of earth and the hedgerow on top. (As for the trench, where I come from that’s a sheugh).2013 October 31, Frank McNally, “When Anglophone lines get crossed”, in The Irish Times, Dublin: Irish Times Trust, archived from the original on 14 Mar 2021
- You flung a ditch on my vision
Verb
ditch (third-person singular simple present ditches, present participle ditching, simple past and past participle ditched)
- To discard or abandon; to stop associating with (someone).
- Once the sun came out we ditched our rain-gear and started a campfire.
- Why did you ditch your last boyfriend? He was so nice to you.
- To deliberately crash-land an airplane on water.
- When the second engine failed, the pilot was forced to ditch; their last location was just south of the Azores.
- To deliberately not attend classes; to play hookey.
- The truant officer caught Louise ditching with her friends, and her parents were forced to pay a fine.
- "No, instead, it just had enough power to transform me, overload, and force me to wait to change back! I had to ditch school!"2005 December 2, Dan Shive, El Goonish Shive (webcomic), Comic for Friday, Dec 2, 2005
- To dig ditches.
- Enclosure led to fuller winter employment in hedging and ditching.
- To dig ditches around.
- The soldiers ditched the tent to prevent flooding.
- To throw into a ditch.
- The engine was ditched and turned on its side.
Proper noun capitalized: Ditch
- The city of Calcutta.
Also used as
ditch is also the alternative form of deech.
ditch meaning in Hindi, Telugu, Gujarati and Assamese
ditch in Hindi
- trench
- खाई khāī, नाली nālī, गड्ढा gaḍḍhā
ditch in Telugu
- trench
- అగడ్త agaḍta
ditch in Gujarati
- trench
- ખાડો khāḍo
ditch in Assamese
- trench
- খাৱৈ khawoi, গাঁত gãt
More languagesFewer languages
- ditch in Nepali
- खाई khāī
- ditch in Tagalog
- kanal
- ditch in Arabic
- خَنْدَق ḵandaq, أُخْدُود ʔuḵdūd, قَنَال qanāl, قَنَاة qanāh
- ditch in Indonesian
- parit
- ditch in Persian
- گودال gowdâl, فرگن fargan
- ditch in Thai
- คู kuu, คูน้ำ kuu náam
- ditch in Vietnamese
- hào, rãnh, mương
- ditch in Myanmar
- မြောင်း mraung:
Examples of ditch in a sentence
- They dug an eight-foot ditch along the side of the road.
- The tennis ball bounced off the wall before coming to rest in the ditch.
- He stayed up all night in a last ditch effort to finish on time.
Synonyms of ditch
1 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Antonyms
Forms of ditch
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | ditches |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | ditches |
| present participle | ditching |
| past participle | ditched |
| past | ditched |
Origin of ditch
From Middle English dich, from Old English dīċ (“trench, moat”) from Proto-Germanic *dīkaz (compare Swedish dike, Icelandic díki, West Frisian dyk (“dam”), Dutch dijk (“dam”), German Teich (“pond”)), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰeygʷ- (“to stick, set up”) (compare Latin fīgō (“to affix, fasten”), Lithuanian diegti (“to prick; plant”), dýgsti (“to geminate, grow”)). Doublet of dike.
From earlier deche, from Middle English dechen, from Old English dēcan (“to smear, plaster, daub”). More at deech.
In reference to the Maratha Ditch.
Words formed from ditch
- across the ditch
- bar ditch
- Black Ditch
- dead as ditch-water
- die in the last ditch
- ding-dong ditch
- ditch day
- ditchdigger
- ditchdigging
- ditcher
- Ditchfield
- ditchfinder
- ditch jewel
- ditchless
- ditchlet
- ditchlike
- ditchside
- ditch stonecrop
- ditchwater
- ditch weed
- Ditch Witch
- ditchy
- hurler on the ditch
- itch the ditch
- last-ditch
- ox is in the ditch
- Quidditch
- snitches get stitches and wind up in ditches
- stitch in the ditch
- The Ditch
- ditchable
- ditch out
Phrases with ditch
Words that rhyme with ditch
25 more rhymesFewer rhymes
Questions about ditch
- What does ditch mean?
- Ditch means a trench; a long, shallow indentation, as for irrigation or drainage.
- What is ditch in Hindi?
- Ditch in Hindi is खाई (khāī), नाली (nālī), गड्ढा (gaḍḍhā). See Ditch meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is ditch?
- Ditch can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce ditch?
- Ditch is pronounced /dɪt͡ʃ/.
- What is the plural of ditch?
- The plural of ditch is ditches.
Words near ditch in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: ditch (page history and authors); Ditch (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-ditch.ogg.
Cite this entry: “ditch.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ditch. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.