Word.ws English Dictionary

trawl

/tɹɔːl/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Australia/tɹoːl/

trawl noun: a net or dragnet used for trawling.

trawl: a net or dragnet used for trawling
Image: NOAA, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

trawl (plural trawls)

  1. A net or dragnet used for trawling.
  2. A long fishing line having many short lines bearing hooks attached to it; a setline.
  3. An exhaustive search.
    • I embarked on a trawl through my uncle's papers in search of his missing will.

Verb

trawl (third-person singular simple present trawls, present participle trawling, simple past and past participle trawled)

  1. (ambitransitive) To take (fish or other marine animals) with a trawl.
    • The fisherman went out to trawl the deep sea for shrimp.
  2. (intransitive) To fish from a slow-moving boat.
    • They used a large net to trawl for fish along the coast.
  3. (intransitive) To make an exhaustive search for something within a defined area.
    • We need to trawl through the data to find meaningful patterns.
    Synonyms:
    rummage, forage, rifle

trawl meaning in Tamil, Kannada, Tagalog and Indonesian

trawl in Tamil

இழுவலை

trawl in Kannada

ದೊಡ್ಡ ಬಲೆ

trawl in Tagalog

To fish with a trawl
mamalakaya

trawl in Indonesian

To fish with a trawl
memukat, menjaring

Examples of trawl in a sentence

  • The dory thus went down the whole length of the trawl.
  • The main human-induced threat to Hector's and Maui's dolphins is set netting, followed by trawling.
  • Trawl your local Chinatown in search of candy-coloured paper shades like this one.

All 16 example sentences with trawl

Synonyms of trawl

Forms of trawl

Noun
pluraltrawls
Verb
third-person singular presenttrawls
present participletrawling
past participletrawled
pasttrawled

Plural of trawl: trawls

Origin of trawl

16th century, borrowed from Dutch tragelen (“to pull with a towline, trawl”), from Middle Dutch traghelen, from traghel (“dragnet”) (presumably from Latin tragula (“dragnet”)), and as such root-cognate with English drag and dray.

Words formed from trawl

Phrases with trawl

Words that rhyme with trawl

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about trawl

What does trawl mean?
Trawl means a net or dragnet used for trawling.
What is trawl in Tamil?
Trawl in Tamil is இழுவலை. See Trawl meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is trawl?
Trawl can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce trawl?
Trawl is pronounced /tɹɔːl/ (UK).
What is the plural of trawl?
The plural of trawl is trawls.

Words near trawl in the dictionary

  1. Trawalla
  2. Traweek
  3. Traweeks
  4. Trawick
  5. Trawicks
  6. trawl
  7. trawl net
  8. trawl whiting
  9. trawlability
  10. trawlable
  11. trawlboat

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: trawl (page history and authors); trawl (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); trawl (Kannada Wiktionary) (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-trawl.wav.

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