trench warfare
noun
Simple meaning
Warfare in which opposing sides occupy trenches and repeatedly fire at one another.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
trehnchwawrferSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈtɹɛntʃwɔɹfɛɹ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
uncountable
Warfare in which opposing sides occupy trenches and repeatedly fire at one another; usually involving high casualty rates over a long period of time.
uncountableby extensionoften figurative
Fighting of any sort which offers no hope of ending soon.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Warfare in which opposing sides occupy trenches and repeatedly fire at one another; usually involving high casualty rates over a long period of time.
Used this way, trench warfare is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.