tunnel
Part of speech: noun
verb
Morphological type: simple
Topics: business
computing
engineering
mathematics
medicine
mining
natural-sciences
networking
physical-sciences
physics
sciences
Etymology: From Middle French tonnelle (“net”) or tonel (“cask”), diminutive of Old French tonne (“cask”), a word of uncertain origin and affiliation. Related to Old English tunne (“tun; cask; barrel”). More at tun.
Inflected forms:
form: tunnels
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: tunnels
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: tunneling
pos: verb
tags: US
participle
present
form: tunnelling
pos: verb
tags: UK
participle
present
form: tunneled
pos: verb
tags: US
participle
past
form: tunneled
pos: verb
tags: US
past
form: tunnelled
pos: verb
tags: UK
participle
past
form: tunnelled
pos: verb
tags: UK
past
Senses:
gloss: An underground or underwater passage.
pos: noun
examples: In 1865 an outfit called the East London Railway Company bought the Brunel tunnel for £800,000, and in 1869 they opened a railway through it.
gloss: A passage through or under some obstacle.
pos: noun
examples: But very soon he grew to like it, for the Boy used to talk to him, and made nice tunnels for him under the bedclothes that he said were like the burrows the real rabbits lived in.
Tunnels often feature in fictional journeys, so I will end with quotations from a fairly recent novel, Howard Spring's "Fame is the Spur", published in 1940, in which there is a journey from Manchester to Bradford via the Calder Valley route: "Ay, we're going through Todmorden. We'll soon be in t' tunnel, and when we get to t' other end we'll be in Yorkshire," and "Ah think this is t' filthiest tunnel in t' world."
There are more than 1,500 railway tunnels in Britain and the majority are still in use, carrying working tracks beneath Britain's most inconvenient geographic features.
gloss: A hole in the ground made by an animal, a burrow.
pos: noun
gloss: A wrapper for a protocol that cannot otherwise be used because it is unsupported, blocked, or insecure.
pos: noun
gloss: 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.
pos: noun
gloss: The opening of a chimney for the passage of smoke; a flue.
pos: noun
examples: And one great chimney, whose long tonnell thence, / The smoke forth threw
gloss: 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.
pos: noun
gloss: Anything that resembles a tunnel.
pos: noun
tags: figuratively
examples: Especially in the Eden Valley, trees create what is almost a green tunnel (particularly in summer).
gloss: To make a tunnel through or under something; to burrow.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: The 1955 Act gave powers for compulsory acquisition of "easements", or permission to tunnel beneath dwelling houses instead of, as had previously been necessary, following approximately the course of surface roads.
The 6.5km route is agreed from a junction with the relief lines of the Great Western main line to the west of Slough, the new link would tunnel under the M25 to reach Heathrow's Terminal 5 station, where space has been set aside to accommodate services from the west.
gloss: To dig a tunnel.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
gloss: To transmit something through a tunnel (wrapper for an insecure or unsupported protocol).
pos: verb
gloss: To insert a catheter into a vein to allow long-term use.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
gloss: To undergo the quantum-mechanical phenomenon where a particle penetrates through a barrier that it classically cannot surmount.
pos: verb
Derived words: asstunnel
Chunnel
Eurotunnel
intertunnel
intratunnel
microtunnel
nanotunnel
subtunnel
tunnelable
tunnelball
tunnelful
tunnelist
tunnellike
tunnelly
tunnelway
air tunnel
bridge-and-tunnel
bridge and tunnel
carpal tunnel
carpal tunnel syndrome
Channel Tunnel
cross-tunnel
ear tunnel
flesh tunnel
fudge tunnel
high tunnel
light at the end of the tunnel
love tunnel
quantum tunnel
radial tunnel syndrome
screech tunnel
Severn Tunnel Junction
snake in the tunnel
steam tunnel
sun tunnel
tarsal tunnel syndrome
time tunnel
Toblerone tunnel
tree tunnel
tunnel book
tunnel boring machine
tunnel broker
Tunnel City
tunnel diode
tunnel disease
tunnel head
tunnel kiln
tunneller
tunnel net
tunnel of love
tunnel plug
tunnel ram
tunnel rat
tunnel running
tunnel stern
tunnel vision
tunnel-visioned
water tunnel
wind tunnel
Translations: