Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use trench in a sentence

40 example sentences · noun, verb

Trench means a long, narrow ditch or hole in the ground; either manmade, or formed naturally through erosion or tectonic plate movement. Example: “The trenches for installing the underground cables were dug with a trencher.”

Examples of trench by meaning

nounA long, narrow ditch or hole in the ground; either manmade, or formed naturally through erosion or tectonic plate...

  • The trenches for installing the underground cables were dug with a trencher.
  • The milling action of the bucket line enables the trencher to cut through difficult materials, such as stone rubble and brick filling, and to leave a good trench with clean side walls.1956 January, “New Permanent Way Equipment on British Railways”, in Railway Magazine, page 57

nounA narrow excavation as used in warfare, as a cover for besieging or emplaced forces.

  • The soldiers in the trenches rely on logistical support.
  • Following in the tank's wake, the cameliers reached the first line of Turkish trenches, where they confronted a handful of Ottoman soldiers too wounded to retreat.2015, Eugene Rogan, The Fall of the Ottomans, Penguin, published 2016, page 331

nounA trench coat.

  • I was the first person in my high school to wear a trench and fedora constantly, and Ben was one of the first to wear a black trench.1999, April 24, Xiphias Gladius, "Re: trenchcoat mafia", ne.general.selected, Usenet
  • A classic trench can work in any kind of weather and goes well with almost anything.2007, Nina Garcia, The Little Black Book of Style, HarperCollins, as excerpted in Elle, October, page 138

verbTo invade, especially with regard to the rights or the exclusive authority of another; to encroach.

  • He could make what laws he pleased, as long as those laws did not trench upon property rights.1949, Charles Austin Beard, American Government and Politics, page 16

verbTo cut furrows or ditches in.

  • to trench land for the purpose of draining it

verbTo dig or cultivate very deeply, usually by digging parallel contiguous trenches in succession, filling each from the...

  • to trench a garden for certain crops

More sentences with trench

  • He plans to hire somebody to do the grunt work of digging the trenches for the pipes.From the entry grunt work
  • The artillery fired gas shells into the enemy trenches.From the entry gas
  • A rain of mortar fire fell on our trenches.From the entry rain
  • Clutching my wounded side, I crawled back to the trench.From the entry crawl
  • After you're done laying the pipe, fill in the trench.From the entry fill in
  • The guns shelled the enemy trenches.From the entry shell
  • In an attempt to alleviate the problem, wooden planking, known as duckboards, was placed at the bottom of trenches and across other areas of muddy or waterlogged ground.From the entry duckboard
  • The design also included geotextile lining of the trench in which the drainage pipe was buried.2022 March 23, Philip Haigh, “Network News: Carillion changed the design of Carmont's drains”, in RAIL, number 953, page 9. From the entry geotextile
  • Canada is three mining companies in a trench coat, wearing a stupid hat and carrying a gun.2020 February 19, Alex V Green, “Canada is Fake”, in The Outline, archived from the original on 21 Feb 2020. From the entry in a trench coat
  • Trenches were dug into the marshlands (marjals) east of the city to drain them.2014, Thomas F. Glick, Steven Livesey, Faith Wallis, Medieval Science, Technology, and Medicine: An Encyclopedia, Routledge, →ISBN. From the entry marjal
  • The blasts rocked the city's Cianjhen district, scattering cars and blowing deep trenches in roads.2014 August 1, “Taiwan gas blasts in Kaohsiung kill at least 25”, in BBC News, archived from the original on 06 Apr 2023. From the entry Cianjhen
  • Our outpost was in a trench under a huge, shady fig tree.2010, Ron Morkel, “Territorial Soldier”, in Rhodesia: Beginning to End, →ISBN, part 4 (Ronald Norman Morkel (1946- )), page 262. From the entry plum-colored starling
  • Astley’s signature trench coat, lip-synched and mugged to the music: a popular prank known as rickrolling.[2008 March 24, Evelyn Nussenbaum, “The ’80s Video That Pops Up, Online and Off”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York…. From the entry rickroll
  • Will he or she be in the trenches when it really counts?2008 October 25, Emily Baltz, “U.S. Ambassador Calls On Jewish Voters To Drop Republican Support, Back Obama”, in cbsnews.com, retrieved…. From the entry babysitter test
  • Vincent's angina (or trench mouth) is a distinct form of ulcerative gingivitis.2002, Itzhak Brook MD, “Anaerobic Bacteria in Upper Respiratory Tract and other Head and Neck Infections”, in Annals of Otology, Rhinology…. From the entry trench mouth
  • A soldier noticed how earth "gave" as he walked over the shallow trenches.1992, Garry Wills, “prologue”, in Lincoln at Gettysburg, page 21. From the entry give
  • All along the trench men were crawling out of funk holes.1991, Pat Barker, Regeneration (The Regeneration Trilogy), Penguin, published 2014, page 138. From the entry funk hole
  • The other guys scrambled up out of that trench and jumped all over us.1990, James R. Wilson, Landing Zones, Durham, N.C.; London: Duke University Press, →ISBN, page 197. From the entry deadass
  • Trench coat afly, hair touseled, face pink, although from exertion rather than inebriation.1983, Todd McEwen, chapter 12, in Fisher’s Hornpipe,, New York: Harper & Row, page 198. From the entry afly
  • The overlying islandward "wall" of the trench is made of an imbricated thrust mass of deformed sediments.1973, Xavier Le Pichon, Jean Francheteau, Jean Bonnin, “Processes at consuming plate boundaries” (chapter 7), in Developments In…. From the entry islandward
  • This study recommended establishment as preserves an abyssal trench, an underseas tablemount, and an atoll.1966, Naturalist - Volumes 17-19, page 257. From the entry tablemount
  • It was reported that the Germans had established trench works in front of the pillboxes.1944 December 19, “Germans Stiff in Southern Reich”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, page 4. From the entry pillbox
  • That's the worst trouble with the soldiers in the trenches — nothing to do.1918, Elizabeth Frazer, Old Glory and Verdun, page 169. From the entry cafard
  • "Trench mouth" is one of the war diseases which is engaging the attention of British army doctors.1918 June 17, “Discover New War Disease: British and French Soldiers Suffering from ‘Trench Mouth’”, in New York Times, retrieved 07 Jan…. From the entry trench mouth
  • A bombing attack along a trench can only be met by a bomb defence.1918, Dixhuit, Safety in Trench Warfare for Yourself & Your Men. From the entry chuck up the sponge
  • These trenches, you know, are much deeper than one's height; you don't see anything.1916, H. G. Wells, chapter 9, in Mr. Britling Sees It Through. From the entry soakaway
  • Geolocated footage shows how Ukrainians were targeting Russian infantry in the trenches in front of Yampolivka with FPV kamikaze drones.2024 May 17th, “Reporting from Ukraine” (channel name), 16 May: RUSSIANS ARE FINISHED! Ukrainians EXHAUST Russian forces AND TAKE GROUND!…. From the entry Yampolivka
  • Jean-Baptiste was my only real white friend in the trench.2018, David Diop, chapter 10, in Anna Moschovakis, transl., At Night All Blood Is Black, London: Pushkin. From the entry toubab
  • Here we describe a lithography-free, self-aligned nanotrench ablation (SANTA) technique to create nanoscale trenches in a polymer like poly(methyl) methacrylate (PMMA).2016, Feng Xiong, Sanchit Deshmukh, Sungduk Hong, Yuan Dai, Ashkan Behnam, Feifei Lian, Eric Pop, “SANTA: Self-Aligned Nanotrench Ablation…. From the entry nanotrench
  • But to the English, the ditch is the trench.2013 October 31, Frank McNally, “When Anglophone lines get crossed”, in The Irish Times, Dublin: Irish Times Trust, archived from the…. From the entry ditch
  • The mailbag goes down our trench once a day.2012, Ken Catran, Letters from the Coffin-Trenches, Penguin Random House New Zealand Limited, →ISBN. From the entry stifle

Meaning of trench

  1. noun A long, narrow ditch or hole in the ground; either manmade, or formed naturally through erosion or tectonic plate movement.
  2. noun A narrow excavation as used in warfare, as a cover for besieging or emplaced forces.
  3. noun A pit, usually rectangular with smooth walls and floor, excavated during an archaeological investigation.

Full definition of trench

Questions about trench in a sentence

How do you use trench in a sentence?
Trench is used as a noun and verb. For example: “The trenches for installing the underground cables were dug with a trencher.”
What is a short sentence with trench?
“The guns shelled the enemy trenches.”
What does trench mean?
Trench means a long, narrow ditch or hole in the ground; either manmade, or formed naturally through erosion or tectonic plate movement.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: trench (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use trench in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/trench. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.