tunnel

Meanings

Noun

• An underground or underwater passage.
• A passage through or under some obstacle.
• A hole in the ground made by an animal, a burrow.
• A wrapper for a protocol that cannot otherwise be used because it is unsupported, blocked, or insecure.
• 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.
• The opening of a chimney for the passage of smoke; a flue.
• 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.
• Anything that resembles a tunnel.

Verb

• To make a tunnel through or under something; to burrow.
• To dig a tunnel.
• To transmit something through a tunnel (wrapper for insecure or unsupported protocol).
• To insert a catheter into a vein to allow long-term use.
• To undergo the quantum-mechanical phenomenon where a particle penetrates through a barrier that it classically cannot surmount.

Related

Narrower meaning words

• base tunnel
• running tunnel
• summit tunnel

Origin

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