Retrenchment

/ɹɪˈtɹɛn(t)ʃm(ə)nt/ · noun

Meaning

A curtailment or reduction..

Definitions by Sense

1. A curtailment or reduction.
2. (by extension) Withdrawal.
3. (military, dated) A defensive work constructed within a fortification to make it more defensible by allowing defenders to retreat into and fight from it even after the enemy has taken the outer work.
4. (especially politics) The adoption of a defensive and hostile posture; refusal to compromise, radicalization.

Example Sentences

It agrees that redundant services should not be continued but is not unmindful of the fact that too much retrenchment of rail services now may ultimately prove detrimental to the economy of the country.

Last year it was announced that electrification of L.M.R. main lines was to be speeded up and that it would be essential for the engineers to have the longest possible occupation of the lines involved; this would mean some retrenchment of passenger train services.

And the retrenchment of services such as mental health and drug rehabilitation means that vulnerable people are more likely to find themselves on the street.

Even then—10 long years ago—our disillusionment over past failures, our revulsion against moralistic posturing, our retrenchment from prescribing what was best for other people, our withdrawal symptoms from the exhilarations of overcommitment—all these argued for the perspective of diversity; for lowering our goals.

If it is allowed, however, that the theatre of cosmic evolution is endowed with some fixed structure, even a very weak one, then there is a retrenchment from the programme of an evolutionary account of every general law.

Given the current retrenchment of liberal internationalism, it is easy to forget that only three decades ago many believed that liberalism had attained a historically definitive victory over all alternatives.

The Half-Moon is a Work always raiſed before the Baſtion's Point, being ſo named from the Lowneſs of its Gorges Cavity, &c. and is to ſecure the Two Faces of the Baſtion; but when the Faces have but a weak Defence from the Ravelin, theſe Works are ſoon made uſeleſs or ruined, and give the Beſieged an opportunity of Lodgment, and may ſerve for Batteries and Flanks againſt the oppoſing Baſtions; however they may be retrenched by Traverſes, yet they will not fail to attack entirely in the Face, or where you have your laſt Retrenchment, alſo that called the Counterguard runs the like Hazard.

[I]f there is one Retrenchment in a Work, it is generally thought ſufficient; but it happens much oftener than there is none at all; ſo that one might be apt to think, a Defence like that we have been explaining is only chimerical, if the Sieges of Vienna and Candy, both by the Turks, were not inſtances of the contrary, where there was hardly an inch of Ground either within or without thoſe two Towns, as far as the Extremities of the Glacis, and even beyond them, but what was retrenched and countermined.

Synonyms for retrenchment

Antonyms for retrenchment

Related Words

Word Forms

• retrenchments

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