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ditch

noun
/dɪt͡ʃ/

Etymology

From Middle English dich, from Old English dīċ (“trench, moat”) from Proto-Germanic *dīkaz (compare Swedish dike, Icelandic díki, West Frisian dyk (“dam”), Dutch dijk (“dam”), German Teich (“pond”)), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰeygʷ- (“to stick, set up”) (compare Latin fīgō (“to affix, fasten”), Lithuanian diegti (“to prick; plant”), dýgsti (“to geminate, grow”)). Doublet of dike.

  1. inherited from *dʰeygʷ-✻
  2. inherited from *dīkaz✻
  3. inherited from dīċ
  4. inherited from dich

Definitions

  1. A trench

    A trench; a long, shallow indentation, as for irrigation or drainage.

    • Digging ditches has long been considered one of the most demanding forms of manual labor.
    • The truck careered off the road into a ditch.

  2. A raised bank of earth and the hedgerow on top.

    • You flung a ditch on my vision Of beauty, love and truth. O stony grey soil of Monaghan You burgled my bank of youth!

  3. To discard or abandon.

    • Once the sun came out we ditched our rain-gear and started a campfire.
    • Why did you ditch your last boyfriend? He was so nice to you.
  4. ›+ 7 more definitions

    1. To deliberately crash-land an airplane on water.

      • When the second engine failed, the pilot was forced to ditch; their last location was just south of the Azores.

    2. To deliberately not attend classes

      To deliberately not attend classes; to play hookey.

      • The truant officer caught Louise ditching with her friends, and her parents were forced to pay a fine.
      • "No, instead, it just had enough power to transform me, overload, and force me to wait to change back! I had to ditch school!"

    3. To dig ditches.

      • Enclosure led to fuller winter employment in hedging and ditching.

    4. To dig ditches around.

      • The soldiers ditched the tent to prevent flooding.

    5. To throw into a ditch.

      • The engine was ditched and turned on its side.

    6. Alternative form of deech.

    7. The city of Calcutta.

The neighborhood

Derived

across the ditch, bar ditch, Black Ditch, dead as ditch-water, die in the last ditch, ding-dong ditch, ditch day, ditchdigger, ditchdigging, ditcher, Ditchfield, ditchfinder, ditch jewel, ditchless, ditchlet, ditchlike, ditchside, ditch stonecrop, ditchwater, ditch weed, Ditch Witch, ditchy, hurler on the ditch, itch the ditch, last-ditch, ox is in the ditch, Quidditch, snitches get stitches and wind up in ditches, stitch in the ditch, The Ditch, ditchable, ditch out

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at ditch. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.

01ditch02irrigation03irrigated04irrigate05ditches

A definitional loop anchored at ditch. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.

5 hops · closes at ditch

curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA