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  1. trencher love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. A wooden board or platter on which food is carved or served.
  2. n. Archaic The pleasure of the table; food.
  3. n. One that digs trenches.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. One who carves at table; also, one who carves at a side-fable for the company.
  2. n. One who cuts or digs trenches; a trench-digger or -maker.
  3. n. A wooden plate or platter (originally a square piece of board or slice of wood) for the table or the kitchen. Trenchers of some form were used at table till a late period, at first by all classes and afterward by the common people, either to be eaten from or for the cutting up of food; and the number of changes of them during a meal in early times was regulated by personal rank. Trenchers and plates are sometimes mentioned together in later writings, the food being probably served from the former to the latter.
  4. n. A slice of bread used as a platter to lay food upon, as thin cakes of bread still are in some countries. Such slices of bread were either eaten after the meat placed upon them, or, as commonly among the rich, thrown into an alms-basket, with other leavings, for the poor.
  5. n. That which trenchers contain; food; hence, the pleasures of the table: often used attributively.
  6. n. Same as trencher-cap.

Wiktionary

  1. n. archaic A long plate on which food is served and\or cut.
  2. n. One who trenches; especially, one who cuts or digs ditches.
  3. n. A machine for digging trenches.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. One who trenches; esp., one who cuts or digs ditches.
  2. n. A large wooden plate or platter, as for table use.
  3. n. The table; hence, the pleasures of the table; food.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. a wooden board or platter on which food is served or carved
  2. n. someone who digs trenches

Etymologies

  1. Middle English < Anglo-Norman trenchour < Old Northern French trencheor (French tranchoir), from trenchier ("to cut, to carve"). See trench (verb). (Wiktionary)
  2. Middle English trenchur, from Anglo-Norman trenchour, from trencher, to cut, perhaps from Vulgar Latin *trincāre; see trench. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

  • “So people still ate off their wooden trenchers, and as a wooden trencher is about the best substance I know for holding germs and ferments, people died.”

    Canada's Relations With China

  • “For plates they used what was called a trencher made of wood or pewter.”

    History of American Women

  • “-- Ed. 18 In this country the introduction of earthenware plates has driven the less cleanly wooden plate, called a trencher, entirely out of use.”

    Works of John Bunyan — Volume 02

  • “If so, he can instantly transport himself to the times of the wooden "trencher," and the "pewter" mug and pitcher, to the days when iron rails for tramways were unknown, and when even the”

    Steam, Steel and Electricity

  • “NAWANSHAHR: In order to deal with the labour shortage faced by the farmers during installation of Drip and Sprinkler Irrigation System, the Soil and Conservation department has come up with a new device known as "trencher" for undertaking trenching work in the fields.”

    PunjabNewsline News

  • “Something larger than the black ones. those Sticks they place in defferent positions which they perform under a kind of trencher made of bark round and about 14 inches diamieter. this is a very intricate game and I cannot Sufficiently understand to discribe it. the man who is in possession of the Sticks &c places them in defferent positions, and the opposit party tels the position of the black Sticks by a motion of either or both of his hands &c. this game is Counted in the Same way as the one before mentioned. all their games are accompanied with Songs and time. at 3 P.”

    The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806

  • “The bread soaks up the grease and the suety 'trencher' makes the neighborhood birds very happy. ”

    Serious Eats

  • “Using a damp cloth, I carefully sponged the days-old sweat from her body while Blood Thorn sat to one side, a beautifully carved trencher in his lap, spooning food to her by the bite.”

    Simon & Schuster: Fire The Sky

  • “Several women tended a huge pot of bubbling hominy, while baked squash was piled on a long wooden trencher.”

    Simon & Schuster: Fire The Sky

  • “Mr. Jeff Morrison has been subcontracted to put in tube lateral 3.2 in Shirley, afterwards his organisation will pierce upon to Lateral 2.2 as well as 2.9 in District I.Mr. Morrison will be regulating Buffalo Rapids trencher for a incomparable siren trenching as well as his own apparatus for a rest of a project.”

    Archive 2009-12-01

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synonyms (1)

Words with the same meaning

  1. food

hypernyms (2)

Words that are more generic or abstract

  1. board
  1. digger

same context (8)

Words that are found in similar contexts

  1. saltcellar
  1. broma
  1. riches
  1. ampulla
  1. tremens
  1. ewer
  1. comestibles
  1. never

rhymes (9)

Words with the same terminal sound

  1. adventure
  1. bencher
  1. clencher
  1. debenture
  1. denture
  1. indenture
  1. misadventure
  1. quencher
  1. venture

reverse dictionary (9)

Words that contain this word in their definition

  1. treen
  1. trencher-bread
  1. trencher-loaf
  1. trenchour
  1. trencher
  1. scissorium
  1. trencher mate
  1. trencher-man
  1. roundel

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‘trencher’ has been looked up 1470 times, added to 10 lists, commented on 1 time, and has a Scrabble score of 13.