| / English Dictionary |
TROUGH
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
A channel along the eaves or on the roof; collects and carries away rainwater
Synonyms:
gutter; trough
Classified under:
Nouns denoting man-made objects
Hypernyms ("trough" is a kind of...):
channel (a passage for water (or other fluids) to flow through)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "trough"):
chute; slide; slideway; sloping trough (sloping channel through which things can descend)
cullis (a gutter in a roof)
Holonyms ("trough" is a part of...):
gable roof; saddle roof; saddleback; saddleback roof (a double sloping roof with a ridge and gables at each end)
Sense 2
Meaning:
A container (usually in a barn or stable) from which cattle or horses feed
Synonyms:
manger; trough
Classified under:
Nouns denoting man-made objects
Hypernyms ("trough" is a kind of...):
container (any object that can be used to hold things (especially a large metal boxlike object of standardized dimensions that can be loaded from one form of transport to another))
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "trough"):
bunk; feed bunk (a long trough for feeding cattle)
Sense 3
Meaning:
A long narrow shallow receptacle
Classified under:
Nouns denoting man-made objects
Hypernyms ("trough" is a kind of...):
receptacle (a container that is used to put or keep things in)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "trough"):
cradle; rocker (a trough that can be rocked back and forth; used by gold miners to shake auriferous earth in water in order to separate the gold)
Sense 4
Meaning:
A narrow depression (as in the earth or between ocean waves or in the ocean bed)
Classified under:
Nouns denoting natural objects (not man-made)
Hypernyms ("trough" is a kind of...):
depression; natural depression (a sunken or depressed geological formation)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "trough"):
swale (a low area (especially a marshy area between ridges))
Sense 5
Meaning:
A treasury for government funds
Synonyms:
public treasury; till; trough
Classified under:
Nouns denoting possession and transfer of possession
Hypernyms ("trough" is a kind of...):
exchequer; treasury (the funds of a government or institution or individual)
Sense 6
Meaning:
A concave shape with an open top
Synonyms:
bowl; trough
Classified under:
Nouns denoting two and three dimensional shapes
Hypernyms ("trough" is a kind of...):
concave shape; concavity; incurvation; incurvature (a shape that curves or bends inward)
Context examples:
"Like scoring a plate of glass, the trough renders the shelf weak, and in a few decades, it's gone, freeing the ice sheet to ride out faster into the ocean."
(Scientists describe how 'upside-down rivers' of warm water break Antarctica's ice shelf, Wikinews)
For three weeks, a titanium-encased hydrophone recorded ambient noise from the ocean floor at a depth of more than 36,000 feet, or 7 miles, in the Challenger Deep trough in the Mariana Trench near Micronesia.
(Seven miles deep, the ocean is still a noisy place, NOAA)
The trough in the head of the scapula that receives the head of the humerus to form the shoulder joint.
(Glenoid Fossa, NCI Thesaurus)
Another time, one of the servants, whose office it was to fill my trough every third day with fresh water, was so careless as to let a huge frog (not perceiving it) slip out of his pail.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
After a hearty meal and a dip in the trough to wash the dust from them, they strolled forth into the bailey, where the bowman peered about through the darkness at wall and at keep, with the carping eyes of one who has seen something of sieges, and is not likely to be satisfied.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Often, as I still lay at the bottom and kept no more than an eye above the gunwale, I would see a big blue summit heaving close above me; yet the coracle would but bounce a little, dance as if on springs, and subside on the other side into the trough as lightly as a bird.
(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
It was now nearly the hour of high tide, but the waves were so great that in their troughs the shallows of the shore were almost visible, and the schooner, with all sails set, was rushing with such speed that, in the words of one old salt, she must fetch up somewhere, if it was only in hell.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
The walls were of wood, but the floor consisted of a large iron trough, and when I came to examine it I could see a crust of metallic deposit all over it.
(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
“I am making a little trough,” answered the child, “for father and mother to eat out of when I am big.”
(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)
This time, as we went into the trough of the sea and were swept, there were no sails to carry away.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
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