different between trench vs rift

English

Etymology

Borrowed into Middle English from Old French trenche.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /t??nt?/
• Rhymes: -?nt?

Noun

trench (plural trenches)

1. A long, narrow ditch or hole dug in the ground.
2. (military) A narrow excavation as used in warfare, as a cover for besieging or emplaced forces.
3. (archaeology) A pit, usually rectangular with smooth walls and floor, excavated during an archaeological investigation.
4. (informal) A trench coat.
   • 1999, April 24, Xiphias Gladius <[email protected]>, "Re: trenchcoat mafia", ne.general.selected, Usenet:

     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.

   • 2007, Nina Garcia, The Little Black Book of Style, HarperCollins, as excerpted in Elle, October, page 138:

     A classic trench can work in any kind of weather and goes well with almost anything.

Derived terms

Related terms

• tranche

Translations

Verb

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

1. (usually followed by upon) To invade, especially with regard to the rights or the exclusive authority of another; to encroach.
   • 1640, Ben Jonson, Underwoods, page 68:

     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.

   • 1832, Isaac Taylor, Saturday Evening

     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?

   • 1949, Charles Austin Beard, American Government and Politics, page 16:

     He could make what laws he pleased, as long as those laws did not trench upon property rights.

   • 2005, Carl von Clausewitz, J. J. Graham, On War, page 261:

     [O]ur ideas, therefore, must trench upon the province of tactics.

2. (military, infantry) To excavate an elongated pit for protection of soldiers and or equipment, usually perpendicular to the line of sight toward the enemy.

   • Advanc'd upon the field there stood a mound
     Of earth congested, wall'd , and trench'd around

3. (archaeology) To excavate an elongated and often narrow pit.
4. To have direction; to aim or tend.
   • 1612, Francis Bacon, Of Judicature

     the reason and consequence thereof may trench to point of estate

5. To cut; to form or shape by cutting; to make by incision, hewing, etc.
6. To cut furrows or ditches in.

7. To dig or cultivate very deeply, usually by digging parallel contiguous trenches in succession, filling each from the next.

French

Etymology

From English.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /t??nt?/

Noun

trench m (plural trenchs)

1. trench coat

Italian

Etymology

From English trench coat.

Noun

trench m (invariable)

1. trench coat

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: r?ft, IPA^(key): /??ft/
• Rhymes: -?ft

Etymology 1

Middle English rift, of North Germanic origin; akin to Danish rift, Norwegian Bokmål rift (“breach”), Old Norse rífa (“to tear”). More at rive.

Noun

rift (plural rifts)

1. A chasm or fissure.

   My marriage is in trouble: the fight created a rift between us and we can't reconnect.

   The Grand Canyon is a rift in the Earth's surface, but is smaller than some of the undersea ones.

2. A break in the clouds, fog, mist etc., which allows light through.
   • 1931, William Faulkner, Sanctuary, Vintage 1993, page 130:

     I have but one rift in the darkness, that is that I have injured no one save myself by my folly, and that the extent of that folly you will never learn.

3. A shallow place in a stream; a ford.

Derived terms

• rift valley

Translations

Verb

rift (third-person singular simple present rifts, present participle rifting, simple past and past participle rifted)

1. (intransitive) To form a rift; to split open.
2. (transitive) To cleave; to rive; to split.

   to rift an oak

   • to the dread rattling thunder / Have I given fire and rifted Jove's stout oak / With his own bolt

   • 1822, William Wordsworth, "A Jewish Family (in a small valley opposite St. Goar, upon the Rhine)" 9-11, [1]

     The Mother—her thou must have seen, / In spirit, ere she came / To dwell these rifted rocks between.

   • 1894, Ivan Dexter, Talmud: A Strange Narrative of Central Australia, published in serial form in Port Adelaide News and Lefevre's Peninsula Advertiser (SA), Chapter III, [2]

     he stopped rigid as one petrified and gazed through the rifted logs of the raft into the water.

Etymology 2

From Old Norse rypta.

Verb

rift (third-person singular simple present rifts, present participle rifting, simple past and past participle rifted)

1. (obsolete outside Scotland and northern Britain) To belch.

Etymology 3

Verb

rift (obsolete)

1. past participle of rive

   The mightie trunck halfe rent, with ragged rift

   Doth roll adowne the rocks, and fall with fearefull drift.

Anagrams

• FTIR, frit

Norwegian Bokmål

Etymology

From the verb rive

Noun

rift f or m (definite singular rifta or riften, indefinite plural rifter, definite plural riftene)

1. a rip, tear (in fabric)
2. a break (in the clouds)
3. a scratch (on skin, paint)
4. a rift (geology)

Derived terms

• riftdal

References

• “rift” in The Bokmål Dictionary.
• “rift” in Det Norske Akademis ordbok (NAOB).

Norwegian Nynorsk

Etymology

From the verb rive or riva

Noun

rift f (definite singular rifta, indefinite plural rifter, definite plural riftene)

1. a rip, tear (in fabric)
2. a break (in the clouds)
3. a scratch (on skin, paint)
4. a rift (geology)

Derived terms

• riftdal

References

• “rift” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

Old English

Etymology

From Proto-Germanic *rift?, *riftij?, perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *h?reb?- (“to cover; arch over; vault”). Cognate with Old High German peinrefta (“legwear; leggings”), Old Norse ript, ripti (“a kind of cloth; linen jerkin”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /rift/

Noun

rift n (nominative plural rift)

1. a veil; curtain; cloak

Related terms

• rifte

Descendants

• Middle English: rift

Romanian

Etymology

From French rift.

Noun

rift n (plural rifturi)

1. rift

Declension

Scots

Etymology

From Old Norse rypta.

Verb

rift (third-person singular present rifts, present participle riftin, past riftit, past participle riftit)

1. to belch, burp