/tɹɔːl/, /tɹɔl/, /tɹɑl/
Origin16th century, borrowed from Dutch tragelen (“to pull with a towline, trawl”), from Middle Dutch traghelen, from traghel (“dragnet”) (presumably from Latin tragula (“dragnet”)), and as such root-cognate with English drag and dray.
- A net or dragnet used for trawling.
- A long fishing line having many short lines bearing hooks attached to it; a setline.
- An exhaustive search.
“I embarked on a trawl through my uncle's papers in search of his missing will.”
- ambitransitiveTo take (fish or other marine animals) with a trawl.
“The fisherman went out to trawl the deep sea for shrimp.”
- intransitiveTo fish from a slow-moving boat.
“They used a large net to trawl for fish along the coast.”
- intransitiveTo make an exhaustive search for something within a defined area.
“We need to trawl through the data to find meaningful patterns.”
Formstrawls(plural) · trawls(present, singular, third-person) · trawling(participle, present) · trawled(participle, past) · trawled(past)