# trough
## English
### Etymology

* PIE word
* *dóru
From Middle English trogh, from Old English troh, trog (“a trough, tub, basin, vessel for containing liquids or other materials”), from Proto-West Germanic *trog, from Proto-Germanic *trugą, *trugaz, from Proto-Indo-European *drukós, enlargement of *dóru (“tree”).
See also West Frisian trôch, Dutch trog, German Trog, Danish trug, Swedish tråg; also Middle Irish drochta (“wooden basin”), Old Armenian տարգալ (targal, “ladle, spoon”). More at tree.

### Pronunciation

* (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /tɹɒf/
** Audio (Southern England):(file)
* This entry needs an audio pronunciation. If you are a native speaker with a microphone, please record this word. The recorded pronunciation will appear here when it's ready. Particularly: "Canada"
* (US) enPR: trôf, IPA: /tɹɔf/
** (cot–caught merger) enPR: trŏf, IPA: /tɹɑf/
*** Audio (US):(file)
* (Canada) IPA: /tɹɒf/
* (US, dialectal) enPR: trôth, IPA: /tɹɔθ/
** (cot–caught merger) IPA: /tɹɑθ/
* Rhymes: -ɒf

### Noun

trough (plural troughs)
* A long, narrow container, open on top, for feeding or watering animals.
    One of Harriet's chores was to slop the pigs' trough each morning and evening.
* Any similarly shaped container.
** 1961 November, “Talking of Trains: The North Eastern's new rail-mounted piling unit”, in Trains Illustrated, page 646:Now, covered concrete troughs to house the cables are laid parallel with the railway lines, cheapening maintenance because of improved accessibility for inspection and repair.
** 1976, Frederick Bentham, The art of stage lighting, page 233:It just clips on the front of the stage without any special trough, has no great power and occupies only one dimmer, […]
** (Australia, New Zealand) A rectangular container used for washing or rinsing clothes.
    Ernest threw his paint brushes into a kind of trough he had fashioned from sheet metal that he kept in the sink.
* A short, narrow canal designed to hold water until it drains or evaporates.
    There was a small trough that the sump pump emptied into; it was filled with mosquito larvae.
* (colloquial) An undivided metal urinal (plumbing fixture)
* (Canada) A gutter under the eaves of a building; an eaves trough.
    The troughs were filled with leaves and needed clearing.
* (agriculture, Australia, New Zealand) A channel for conveying water or other farm liquids (such as milk) from place to place by gravity; any ‘U’ or ‘V’ cross-sectioned irrigation channel.
* A long, narrow depression between waves or ridges; the low portion of a wave cycle.
    The buoy bobbed between the crests and troughs of the waves moving across the bay.
    The neurologist pointed to a troubling trough in the pattern of his brain-waves.
* (economics) A low turning point or a local minimum of a business cycle.
    Antonym: peak
* (meteorology) A linear atmospheric depression associated with a weather front.

#### Synonyms

* manger (container for feeding animals)

#### Derived terms

* book trough
* glacial trough
* Gunn-Peterson trough
* kneading trough
* Langmuir-Blodgett trough
* LB trough
* pneumatic trough
* slake trough
* Sylhet Trough
* trougher
* trough lake
* trough lolly
* trough-shell
* trough shell
* trough valley
* water trough
* wine trough

#### Translations

    The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

### Verb

trough (third-person singular simple present troughs, present participle troughing, simple past and past participle troughed)
* To eat in a vulgar style, as if from a trough.
    He troughed his way through three meat pies.

#### References

* Oxford English Dictionary Online

### See also

* crib
* ditch
* trench

### Anagrams

* Rought, rought

## Middle English
### Noun

trough
* Alternative form of trogh