Word.ws English Dictionary

trench

/ˈtɹɛnt͡ʃ/

trench noun: a long, narrow ditch or hole in the ground; either manmade, or formed naturally through erosion or tectonic plate movement.

trench: a long, narrow ditch or hole in the ground; either manmade, or formed naturally through erosion or...
Image: John Warwick Brooke, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

trench (plural trenches)

  1. A long, narrow ditch or hole in the ground; either manmade, or formed naturally through erosion or tectonic plate movement.
    • 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
  2. A 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
  3. A pit, usually rectangular with smooth walls and floor, excavated during an archaeological investigation.
  4. (informal) A 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

Verb

trench (third-person singular simple present trenches, present participle trenching, simple past and past participle trenched)

  1. (usually) To invade, especially with regard to the rights or the exclusive authority of another; to encroach.
    • Shee is the Judge, Thou Executioner, Or if thou needs would'st trench upon her power, Thou mightst have yet enjoy'd thy crueltie, With some more thrift, and more varietie.1640, Ben Jonson, Underwoods, page 68
    • Does it not seem as if for a creature to challenge to itself a boundless attribute, were to trench upon the prerogative of the divine nature?1832, [Isaac Taylor], Saturday Evening. […], London: Holdsworth and Ball, →OCLC
  2. (infantry) To excavate an elongated pit for protection of soldiers and or equipment, usually perpendicular to the line of sight toward the enemy.
    • No more shall trenching war channel her fields.c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
    • Advanc'd upon the field there stood a mound
      Of earth congested, wall'd , and trench'd around1715–1720, Homer, “(please specify the book of the Iliad or chapter quoted from)”, in Alexander Pope, transl., The Iliad of Homer, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: […] W[illiam]...
  3. To excavate an elongated and often narrow pit.
  4. To have direction; to aim or tend.
    • the reason and consequence thereof may trench to point of estate1625, Francis [Bacon], “Of Judicature”, in The Essayes […], 3rd edition, London: […] Iohn Haviland for Hanna Barret, →OCLC
  5. To cut; to form or shape by cutting; to make by incision, hewing, etc.
    • The wide wound that the boar had trenched / In his soft flank.1593, [William Shakespeare], Venus and Adonis, London: […] Richard Field, […], →OCLC
    • This weak impress of love is as a figure / Trenched in ice, which with an hour's heat
      Dissolves to water, and doth lose its form.c. 1590–1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Two Gentlemen of Verona”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
  6. To cut furrows or ditches in.
    • to trench land for the purpose of draining it
  7. To dig or cultivate very deeply, usually by digging parallel contiguous trenches in succession, filling each from the next.
    • to trench a garden for certain crops

Proper noun capitalized: Trench

Trench (countable and uncountable, plural Trenches)

  1. A suburb of Telford, Telford and Wrekin borough, Shropshire, England (OS grid ref SJ6912).
  2. A habitational surname.

trench meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

trench in Hindi

long, narrow ditch or hole
खाई khāī
military excavation
खाई khāī

trench in Tamil

நீள்வரிப் பள்ளம், பள்ளம், மறை குழி, மறைகுழி, அகழி, கடலடிப் படுகுழி

trench in Marathi

long, narrow ditch or hole
खंदक khandak

trench in Urdu

military excavation
خَنْدَق xandaq
More languagesFewer languages
trench in Bengali
হড়ং hoṛoṅ
trench in Telugu
కందకము kandakamu
trench in Malayalam
ഓട ōṭa, മോർച്ച mōṟcca
trench in Kannada
ಕಾಲುವೆ, ಅಗಳು, ಅಗಳ್ತೆ
trench in Punjabi
مورچہ morcah, ਮੋਰਚਾ morcā, ਖਾਈ khāī
trench in Odia
ପରିଖା
trench in Sinhala
අගල agala
trench in Nepali
ट्रेंच
trench in Pashto
سنګر sangar
trench in Tagalog
trintsera
trench in Arabic
خَنْدَق ḵandaq, أُخْدُود ʔuḵdūd
trench in Malay
parit, jurang
trench in Indonesian
palung
trench in Persian
ترانشه terânše, سنگر sangar, خندق xandaq
trench in Thai
คู kuu, ร่อง rɔ̂ng
trench in Vietnamese
hào, chiến hào
Kashmiri
خَنٛدَق khandaq

Examples of trench in a sentence

  • 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:
  • [O]ur ideas, therefore, must trench upon the province of tactics.2005, Carl von Clausewitz, J. J. Graham, On War, page 261:

All 40 example sentences with trench

Forms of trench

Noun
pluraltrenches
Verb
third-person singular presenttrenches
present participletrenching
past participletrenched
pasttrenched
Proper noun
pluralTrenches

Plural of trench: trenches

Origin of trench

Borrowed into Middle English from Old French trenche. Doublet of tranche and traunch. Possible doublet of English: truncate

From trench.

Words formed from trench

Phrases with trench

11 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with trench

11 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about trench

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.
What is trench in Hindi?
Trench in Hindi is खाई (khāī). See Trench meaning in Hindi.
How do you use trench in a sentence?
He could make what laws he pleased, as long as those laws did not trench upon property rights.
What part of speech is trench?
Trench can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce trench?
Trench is pronounced /ˈtɹɛnt͡ʃ/.
What is the plural of trench?
The plural of trench is trenches.

Words near trench in the dictionary

  1. trenails
  2. Trenary
  3. Trenarys
  4. Trenayr
  5. trenbolone
  6. trench
  7. trench art
  8. trench binoculars
  9. trench boot
  10. trench boots
  11. trench broom

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: trench (page history and authors); Trench (page history and authors); trench (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); হড়ং (Bengali) (page history and authors); ഓട (Malayalam) (page history and authors); trench (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); مورچہ (Punjabi) (page history and authors); trench (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); අගල (Sinhala) (page history and authors); trench (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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-trench.wav.

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