en·trench

(ĕn-trĕnch′) also in·trench (ĭn-)

v. en·trenched, en·trench·ing, en·trench·es also in·trenched or in·trench·ing or in·trench·es

v.tr.

1. To provide with a trench, especially for the purpose of fortifying or defending.

2. To fix firmly or securely: "Today managed care plans are entrenched in the economy, enrolling 61 percent of the population" (Peter T. Kilborn).

v.intr.

1. To dig or occupy a trench.

2. To encroach, infringe, or trespass.

en·trench′ment n.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

intrenched

see entrenched

Collins Thesaurus of the English Language – Complete and Unabridged 2nd Edition. 2002 © HarperCollins Publishers 1995, 2002

Translations

trincerato

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References in classic literature

The things which the Stygian darkness hid from my objective eye could not have been half so wonderful as the pictures which my imagination wrought as it conjured to life again the ancient peoples of this dying world and set them once more to the labours, the intrigues, the mysteries and the cruelties which they had practised to make their last stand against the swarming hordes of the dead sea bottoms that had driven them step by step to the uttermost pinnacle of the world where they were now intrenched behind an impenetrable barrier of superstition.

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He had promptly intrenched himself behind a large chair, as if to avoid the first attacks of Madame de Saint-Remy; he had no hopes of prevailing with words, for she spoke louder than he, and without stopping; but he reckoned upon the eloquence of his gestures.

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She was too firmly intrenched in the established to have any sympathy with revolutionary ideas.

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To a man intrenched behind such precautions as these, the chance of being detected might well be reckoned among the last of all the chances that could possibly happen.

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Minny's mistress was charmed; but Minny, who had intrenched himself, trembling, in his basket as soon as the music began, found this thunder so little to his taste that he leaped out and scampered under the remotest chiffonnier , as the most eligible place in which a small dog could await the crack of doom.

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The music was dying away along the street, and its dismal strains were mingled with the knell of midnight from the steeple of the Old South, and with the roar of artillery, which announced that the beleaguering army of Washington had intrenched itself upon a nearer height than before.

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But you keep yourself intrenched in a pretended which paralyzes me.

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