Trench — Defs

01 v. t. To cut; to form or shape by cutting; to make by incision, hewing, or the like.

imp. & p. p. Trenched; p. pr. & vb. n. Trenching

1.
To cut; to form or shape by cutting; to make by incision, hewing, or the like.
“The wide wound that the boar had trenched In his soft flank.” — Shak.

“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.” — Shak.
2.
To fortify by cutting a ditch, and raising a rampart or breastwork with the earth thrown out of the ditch; to intrench.(Fort.)
“No more shall trenching war channel her fields.” — Shak.
3.
To cut furrows or ditches in; as, to trench land for the purpose of draining it.
4.
To dig or cultivate very deeply, usually by digging parallel contiguous trenches in succession, filling each from the next; as, to trench a garden for certain crops.

02 v. i. To encroach; to intrench.

1.
To encroach; to intrench.
“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?” — I. Taylor.
2.
To have direction; to aim or tend.[R.]
“Like powerful armies, trenching at a town By slow and silent, but resistless, sap.” — Young.

Phrases & compounds

To trench at — to make trenches against; to approach by trenches, as a town in besieging it.

03 n. A long, narrow cut in the earth; a ditch; as, a trench for draining land.

1.
A long, narrow cut in the earth; a ditch; as, a trench for draining land.
2.
An alley; a narrow path or walk cut through woods, shrubbery, or the like.[Obs.]
“In a trench, forth in the park, goeth she.” — Chaucer.
3.
An excavation made during a siege, for the purpose of covering the troops as they advance toward the besieged place. The term includes the parallels and the approaches.(Fort.)

Phrases & compounds

To open the trenches — to begin to dig or to form the lines of approach.

Trench cavalier — an elevation constructed (by a besieger) of gabions, fascines, earth, and the like, about half way up the glacis, in order to discover and enfilade the covered way.

Trench plow — a kind of plow for opening land to a greater depth than that of common furrows.