retrenchment

Meaning

Noun

• A curtailment or reduction.
• A defensive work constructed within a fortification to make it more defensible by allowing defenders to retreat into and fight from it even after the enemy has taken the outer work.

Origin

• Probably partly from both of the following:
• . Retrancher and retranchier are derived from Old French re- + tranchier, trenchier (modern French trancher); the further etymology is uncertain, but one possibility is that the Old French words are from Latin truncāre, the present active infinitive of truncō, from truncus, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *twerḱ-.
• retrench + -ment. Retrench is derived from Middle French retrancher, retranchier: see above.
• Probably either from:
• ; or
• retrench + -ment. Retrench is probably derived from Middle French retrancher, retranchier, from Old French re- + tranchier, trenchier; see further at etymology 1.