trawl
pronunciation
How to pronounce trawl in British English:
UK [trɔːl]
How to pronounce trawl in American English:
US [trɔːl]
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- Noun:
- a long fishing line with many shorter lines and hooks attached to it (usually suspended between buoys)
- a conical fishnet dragged through the water at great depths
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- Verb:
- fish with trawlers
Word Origin
- trawl
- trawl: [17] Trawl was probably borrowed from Middle Dutch traghelen ‘drag’. This was a derivative of traghel ‘net pulled along behind a boat for catching fish’, which in turn came from Latin trāgula, a possible relative of trahere ‘pull’ (source of English tractor, treat, etc). Trāgula probably also lies behind English trail [14].=> trail
- trawl (v.)
- 1560s, from Dutch tragelen, from Middle Dutch traghelen "to drag," from traghel "dragnet," probably from Latin tragula "dragnet." Related: Trawled; trawling.
Example
- 1. The oil industry uses supercomputers to trawl seismic data before drilling wells .
- 2. Its reports trawl through all recent climate science .
- 3. A trawl through foreign purchases of british firms in recent years suggests that the balance is by no means all negative .
- 4. My ex made me trawl around every shop to find her a dress .
- 5. The new analysis used catch data as well as stock assessments , scientific trawl surveys , small-scale fishery data and modelling results .