retrench: [16] Retrench originally meant literally ‘dig a new trench as a second line of defence’. It was borrowed from early modern French retrencher, a descendant of Old French retrenchier. This was a compound verb formed from the prefix re- ‘a(chǎn)gain’ and trenchier ‘cut off’ (source of English trench, trenchant, etc). The standard present-day sense of retrench, ‘cut back, economize’, first recorded in the 17th century, is a return to the underlying meaning of French retrencher. => trench, trenchant
retrench (v.1)
1590s, "dig a new trench as a second line of defense," 1590s, probably a back-formation from retrenchment in the military sense. Related: Retrenched; retrenching.
retrench (v.2)
"cut off, cut down, pare away" (expenses, etc.), 1620s, from obsolete French retrencher "to cut off, lessen, shorten" (Modern French retrancher, Old French retrenchier), from re- "back" (see re-) + Old French trenchier "to cut" (see trench). Related: Retrenched; retrenching.
雙語(yǔ)例句
1. Shortly afterwards, cuts in defence spending forced the aerospace industry to retrench.
不久之后，國(guó)防開(kāi)支的削減迫使航空航天業(yè)緊縮開(kāi)支。
來(lái)自柯林斯例句
2. Inflation has forced us to retrench.
因通貨膨脹我們不得不緊縮開(kāi)支.
來(lái)自辭典例句
3. The mess of Wall Street means the families have to retrench.