retrenchment

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A cutting down or back; reduction.
2. n. A curtailment of expenses.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The act of retrenching, lopping off, or pruning; the act of removing what is superfluous: as, retrenchment of words in a writing.
2. n. The act of curtailing, reducing, or lessening; diminution; particularly, the reduction of outlay or expenses; economy.
3. n. Milit.: An interior rampart or defensible line, comprising ditch and parapet, which cuts off a part of a fortress from the rest, and to which a garrison may retreat to prolong a defense, when the enemy has gained partial possession of the place. Also applied to a traverse or defense against flanking fire in a covered way or other part of a work liable to be enfiladed. A retrenchment is thrown across the gorge of a redan or bastion when there is danger that the salient angle will fall into the hands of the besiegers.
4. n. An intrenchment.
5. n. Synonyms and Reduction, curtailment, abridgment.

Wiktionary

1. n. A reduction or curtailment; often referring to a business or government agency cutting back operations or laying off workers.
2. n. 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).

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. The act or process of retrenching.
2. n. (Fort.) A work constructed within another, to prolong the defense of the position when the enemy has gained possession of the outer work; or to protect the defenders till they can retreat or obtain terms for a capitulation.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. the reduction of expenditures in order to become financially stable
2. n. entrenchment consisting of an additional interior fortification to prolong the defense