trawl

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A trawl net.
2. n. See setline.
3. v. To catch (fish) with a trawl.
4. v. To fish with a trawl.
5. v. To troll.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. To drag, as a trawlnet.
2. To catch or take with a trawl-net.
3. To use a trawl-line or trawl-net; fish with a trawl. Synonyms Trawl, Troll. These words and their derivatives are interchangeable in one sense, and not in another. Both are used of surface-fishing, in which the line is trailed along the surface after a boat; troll is more frequent than trawl in literary use. Trawl alone is used of bottom-fishing with a set-line.
4. n. A buoyed line, often of great length, to which short lines with baited hooks are attached at suitable intervals; a trawl-line. Each section or single length of a trawl is a skate. In England a single trawl is usually forty fathoms in length, with twenty-six hooks attached by snoods. As many of these lines are united as it is thought expedient to join, and are shot across the tide as the vessel sails along, so that the snoods may hang clear. There are usually anchors near the ends at intervals of forty fathoms, to keep the line in position, as well as buoys to float it The trawl used in America consists of a long line from forty fathoms to several miles in length, which is anchored at each end to the bottom, the position of the ends being shown by buoys; lines about 2 to 6 feet long, with a hook at the end, are attached at intervals of about 3½ to 15 feet. In some cases the hooks on a single line number as many as five thousand; on the coasts of Maine and Massachusetts the usual number is from four hundred to three thousand. Bait of the proper kind is placed upon the hooks, and the lines are allowed to remain down through a part of a tide. If set at half-tide, they are sometimes overhauled at intervals of half an hour or an hour. When taking them up for examination, the fisherman, beginning at one end close to the buoy, lifts the main line to the surface and carries it along over one side of the boat, which is hauled along under the line toward the other end. The fish found upon the hooks are dropped into the boat by the man who pulls up the line, while a companion, as the line passes over the boat, puts new bait, if necessary, upon the hooks and drops them again into the water. The principal fish taken in this way on the United States coast are the cod, hake, haddock, and skate. It is also called trotline, and in Great Britain is known as long-line, spillan, spillar, spiller, spilliard, or bultow; the last is also the Canadian name.
5. n. A large bag-net, with a wide mouth held open by a frame or other contrivance, and often having net wings on each side of the mouth, designed to be dragged along the bottom by a boat. A beam about 14 feet long, made of stout iron gas-pipe, has fitted to it a net about 40 feet deep, fine toward the end and provided with numerous pockets, for the capture of bottom-fishes, as well as crabs, lobsters, etc. It cannot be used where the bottom is rocky or rough. In Great Britain the trawl-net is a large triangular purse-shaped net, usually about 70 feet long, about 40 feet broad at the mouth, diminishing to 4 or 5 at the cod, which forms the extremity furthest from the boat, and is about 10 feet long, and of nearly uniform breadth. The mouth is kept extended by a wooden beam. The net is furnished with two interior pockets, one on each side, for securing the fish turning back from the cod. Trawl-nets in various forms are also used for submarine exploration in deep water.

Wiktionary

1. n. A long fishing line having many short lines bearing hooks attached to it; a setline.
2. v. To take fish, or other marine animals, with a trawl.
3. v. To fish from a slow moving boat.
4. v. To make an exhaustive search for something within a defined area.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. v. To take fish, or other marine animals, with a trawl.
2. n. U. S. & Canada A fishing line, often extending a mile or more, having many short lines bearing hooks attached to it. It is used for catching cod, halibut, etc.; a boulter.
3. n. A large bag net attached to a beam with iron frames at its ends, and dragged at the bottom of the sea, -- used in fishing, and in gathering forms of marine life from the sea bottom.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a long fishing line with many shorter lines and hooks attached to it (usually suspended between buoys)
2. n. a conical fishnet dragged through the water at great depths
3. v. fish with trawlers