tunnel

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. An underground or underwater passage.
  2. A passage through or under some obstacle.
  3. A hole in the ground made by an animal, a burrow.
  4. A wrapper for a protocol that cannot otherwise be used because it is unsupported, blocked, or insecure.
  5. A vessel with a broad mouth at one end, a pipe or tube at the other, for conveying liquor, fluids, etc., into casks, bottles, or other vessels; a funnel.
  6. The opening of a chimney for the passage of smoke; a flue.
  7. A level passage driven across the measures, or at right angles to veins which it is desired to reach; distinguished from the drift, or gangway, which is led along the vein when reached by the tunnel.
  8. Anything that resembles a tunnel.
verb
  1. To make a tunnel through or under something; to burrow.
  2. To dig a tunnel.
  3. To transmit something through a tunnel (wrapper for an insecure or unsupported protocol).
  4. To insert a catheter into a vein to allow long-term use.
  5. To undergo the quantum-mechanical phenomenon where a particle penetrates through a barrier that it classically cannot surmount.
name
  1. A locality in the City of Launceston, northern Tasmania, Australia.

Pronunciation

/ˈtʌn(ə)l/ en-us-tunnel.ogg

Word forms

tunnel tunnels tunneling tunnelling tunneled tunnelled

Etymology

From Middle French tonnelle (“net”) or tonel (“cask”), diminutive of Old French tonne (“cask”), a word of uncertain origin and affiliation. Related to Old English tunne (“tun; cask; barrel”). More at tun.

This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.