dredge

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Any of various machines equipped with scooping or suction devices and used to deepen harbors and waterways and in underwater mining.
2. n. Nautical A boat or barge equipped with a dredge.
3. n. An implement consisting of a net on a frame, used for gathering shellfish.
4. v. To clean, deepen, or widen with a dredge.
5. v. To bring up with a dredge: dredged up the silt.
6. v. To come up with; unearth: dredged up bitter memories.
7. v. To use a dredge: dredging for alluvial gold.
8. v. To coat (food) by sprinkling with a powder, such as flour or sugar.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A bush-harrow; a large rake.
2. n. Any instrument for bringing up or removing solid substances from under water by dragging on the bottom. A drag-net for taking oysters, etc.
3. n. An apparatus for bringing up marine animals, plants, and other objects from the bottom of the sea for scientific investigation. It consists principally of a frame of iron and a net which is attached to the frame. As generally constructed, the frame is transversely oblong, generally about three times as long as wide, with straight ends and slightly inclined sides, having the outer edges sharp to serve as scrapers. The net is usually composed of heavy twine, but sometimes of iron chainwork, and is attached to the frame by holes near the inner edges. Fastened to the frame are iron handles, to which a rope or iron chain is attached.
4. n. A machine for clearing the beds of canals, rivers, harbors, etc. See dredging-machine.
5. n. In ore-dressing, in certain mining districts of England, ore which is intermediate in rich ness between “prill-ore”; and “halvans”; ore of second quality, more or less intermixed with veinstone. Sometimes written dradge.
6. To clear out with a dredge; remove sand, silt, mud, etc., from the bottom of: as, to dredge a harbor, river, or canal.
7. To take, catch, or gather with a dredge; obtain or remove by the use of a dredge: as, to dredge mud from a river.
8. To make use of a dredge; operate with a dredge: as, to dredge for oysters.
9. n. Formerly, same as meslin; now, specifically, a mixture of oats and barley sown together.
10. To sprinkle flour upon, as roasting meat.

Wiktionary

1. n. Any instrument used to gather or take by dragging; as.
2. n. Very fine mineral matter held in suspension in water.
3. v. to make a channel deeper or wider using a dredge
4. v. to bring something to the surface with a dredge
5. v. to unearth, such as an unsavoury past
6. v. to coat moistened food with a powder, such as flour or sugar

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. Any instrument used to gather or take by dragging; as: (a) A dragnet for taking up oysters, etc., from their beds. (b) A dredging machine. (c) An iron frame, with a fine net attached, used in collecting animals living at the bottom of the sea.
2. n. (Mining) Very fine mineral matter held in suspension in water.
3. v. To catch or gather with a dredge; to deepen with a dredging machine.
4. n. obsolete A mixture of oats and barley.
5. v. To sift or sprinkle flour, etc., on, as on roasting meat.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a power shovel to remove material from a channel or riverbed
2. v. cover before cooking
3. v. search (as the bottom of a body of water) for something valuable or lost
4. v. remove with a power shovel, usually from a bottom of a body of water