retrenching

Verb

retrench (third-person singular simple present retrenches, present participle retrenching, simple past and past participle retrenched)

1. (transitive) To cut down or reduce.
   • O conſider my caſe, moſt blisfull Queen, […] Diſpell thoſe Clouds which hover 'twixt my King and his higheſt Counſell, […] that my great Law-making Court be forced to turn no more to polemicall Committees, […] but that they may come again to the old Parliamentary Rode, To the path of their...1645, James Howell, “England’s Tears, for the Present Wars, which for the Nature of the Quarrel, the Quality of the Strength, the Diversity of Battels, Skirmishes, Encounters, and Sieges, (Happened...
   1. (specifically, transitive) To terminate the employment of a worker to reduce the size of a workforce; to make redundant.
      • This section prescribes that an employer shall ordinarily retrench the workman who was the last person to be employed in that category, unless for reasons to be recorded in writing, the employer retrenches any other workman.2017 July, P. K. Padhi, “The Industrial Disputes Act, 1947”, in Labour and Industrial Laws, 3rd edition, New Delhi: Asoke K. Ghosh, PHI Learning, →ISBN, page 238
   2. (intransitive, transitive) To live less expensively; to economize.
2. (transitive) To confine; to limit; to restrict.
   • They say of God—That He spreadeth forth the heavens as a tent to dwell in; and that as a garment, some time hence, He shall roll them together. These figures, ought they then to receive a retrenched interpretation? Ought they to be denuded of their oriental garb? Not so, […]1860, Isaac Taylor, “Essay VII. ‘Without Controversy.’”, in Logic in Theology and Other Essays. … With a Sketch of the Life of the Author and a Catalogue of His Writings, New York, N.Y.: William...
3. (transitive) To furnish with a retrenchment (a defensive work within a fortification).
   • to retrench bastions
4. (intransitive) To abridge; to curtail.
   • But this thy glory ſhall be ſoon retrench'd; / No more ſhalt thou by oracling abuſe / The Gentiles; henceforth Oracles are ceaſt, / And thou no more with Pomp and Sacrifice / Shalt by enquir'd at Delphos or elſewhere, / At leaſt in vain, for they ſhall find thee mute.1671, John Milton, “The First Book”, in Paradise Regain’d. A Poem. In IV Books. To which is Added, Samson Agonistes, London: […] J[ohn] M[acock] for John Starkey […], →OCLC, page 25, lines 454–459

See all 8 meanings of retrench