Retrench

Quick meaning: Retrench is a verb meaning (transitive) To cut down or reduce.

Meaning

(transitive) To cut down or reduce.

More Meanings

1. (transitive) To confine; to limit; to restrict.
2. (transitive, military) To furnish with a retrenchment (a defensive work within a fortification).
3. (intransitive) To abridge; to curtail.
4. (intransitive) To take up a new defensive position.
5. (intransitive) To live less expensively; to economize.
6. (transitive) To dig or redig a trench where one already exists.

Example Sentences

to retrench bastions

And it would signal to a wider world that Britain is retrenching and not developing its infrastructure to enable growth.

Madam me no Madam, but learn to retrench your vvords; and ſay Mam; as yes Mam, and no Mam, as other Ladies VVomen do. Madam! 'tis a year in pronouncing.

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, […]

Word Forms

• retrenches
• retrenching
• retrenched

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include cut back, abridge, pare, shrink, reduce, reduct.

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