Dictionary Definition
ditch
Noun
1 a long narrow excavation in the earth
2 any small natural waterway
Verb
1 forsake; "ditch a lover"
2 throw away; "Chuck these old notes" [syn:
chuck]
3 sever all ties with, usually unceremoniously or
irresponsibly; "The company dumped him after many years of
service"; "She dumped her boyfriend when she fell in love with a
rich man" [syn: dump]
4 make an emergency landing on water
5 crash or crash-land; "ditch a car"; "ditch a
plane"
6 cut a trench in, as for drainage; "ditch the
land to drain it"; "trench the fields" [syn: trench]
User Contributed Dictionary
English
Pronunciation
- /dɪtʃ/
- Rhymes with: -ɪtʃ
Etymology
Old English dīċNoun
- A trench; a long,
shallow indentation, as for irrigation or drainage.
- Digging ditches has long been considered one of the most arduous forms of manual labor.
Derived terms
Translations
trench
- Albanian: hendek
- CJKV Characters: 渎
- Croatian: rov, nasip
- Dutch: sloot, greppel
- Finnish: oja (for drainage), kanava (for irrigation)
- French: fossé, tranchée, rigole
- German: Graben, Schanze
- Hungarian: árok, sánc
- Japanese: 側溝 (sokkō)
- Norwegian: grøft, dike
- Romanian: şanţ and
- Russian: канава , траншея
- Scots: sheuch
- Slovenian: jarek , grapa
- Turkish: hendek
See also
Verb
- To discard or
abandon.
- Once the sun came out we ditched our rain-gear and started a campfire.
- To deliberately crash-land an
airplane on the sea.
- When the second engine failed, the pilot was forced to ditch; their last location was just south of the Azores.
- 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.
Translations
to abandon
- Finnish: hylätä
- German: entledigen
- Russian: бросать
to crash-land on the sea
- Finnish: tehdä pakkolasku mereen
- German: notwassern
- Russian: совершать вынужденную посадку на воду
to play hookey
- Finnish: lintsata
- German: schwänzen
Extensive Definition
A ditch is usually defined as a small to moderate
depression created to channel water. A ditch can be used for
drainage, to drain
water from low lying areas, alongside roadways or fields, or to
channel water from a more distant source for plant irrigation. A trench can be defined as a long
narrow ditch. Ditches are commonly seen around farmland
especially in areas that have required drainage, such as The Fens in
eastern England and the
pro-water management Netherlands.
Roadside ditches can provide a hazard to motorists, especially in poor
weather conditions. It
is not an uncommon sight in some rural areas to see cars, motorbikes, or bicycles that have crashed into
ditches, or to hear of such accidents.
Fortification
In military engineering and fortification, a distinction is made between a ditch and a trench. A ditch is an obstacle, designed to slow down or break up an attacking force, while a trench is cover, intended to provide protection to the defenders. In Medieval fortification, a ditch was often constructed in front of a defensive wall to hinder mining and escalade. When filled with water, such a defensive ditch is called a moat. Later star forts of Vauban and others comprised elaborate networks of ditches and parapets, carefully calculated so that the soil for the raised earthworks was provided, as nearly as possible, entirely by the excavations whilst also maximising defensive firepower. Today ditches are obsolescent as an anti-personnel obstacle, but are still often used as anti-vehicle obstacles (see also berm).Sustainability of drainage ditches
Drainage ditches play major roles in agriculture throughout the world. Improper drainage systems accelerate water contamination, excessively desiccate soils during seasonal drought, and become a financial burden to maintain. Industrial earth-moving equipment facilitates maintenance of straight drainage trenches, but entrenchment results in increasing environmental and eventually profound economic costs overtime.Sustainable channel design can result in ditches
that are largely self-maintaining due to natural geomorphological
equilibrium. Slowed net siltation and erosion result in net reduction
in sediment
transport. Encouraging development of a natural stream sinuosity and a multi-terraced
channel cross section appear to be key to maintain both peak ditch
drainage capacity, and minimum net pollution and nutrient transport.
Flooding can be a
major cause of recurring crop loss -- particularly in heavy soils--
and can severely disrupt urban economies as well.
Subsurface drainage to ditches offers a way to remove excess water
from agricultural fields, or vital urban spaces, without the
erosion rates and pollution transport that results from direct
surface runoff. However, excess drainage results in recurring
drought induced crop yield
losses and more severe urban heat or
desiccation
issues.
Controlled subsurface drainage from sensitive areas to
vegetated drainage ditches makes possible a more optimal balance
between water drainage and water retention needs. The initial
investment, allows a community to draw down local water tables
when and where necessary without exacerbating drought problems at
other times.
References
ditch in Czech: Gracht
ditch in Danish: Grøft
ditch in German: Gracht
ditch in Estonian: Kuivenduskraav
ditch in French: Fossé (infrastructure)
ditch in Italian: Fossato (architettura)
ditch in Luxembourgish: Gracht
ditch in Dutch: Sloot (watergang)
ditch in Japanese: 溝渠
ditch in Swedish: Dike
ditch in Turkish: Hendek (coğrafya)
External links
Synonyms, Antonyms and Related Words
abandon, abri, abysm, abyss, adit, alight, approach trench, aqueduct, arch dam, arroyo, backstop, bamboo curtain,
bank, bar, barrage, barrier, bear-trap dam, beaver
dam, beg, boom, box canyon, breach, break, breakwater, breastwork, brick wall,
buffer, bulkhead, bulwark, bunker, bury, cache, canal, canalization, canalize, canyon, carve, cashier, cast, cast aside, cast away, cast
off, cavity, chamfer, channel, chap, chasm, check, chimney, chink, chisel, chuck, circumvent, cleave, cleft, cleuch, clough, cofferdam, col, come down, come in,
communication trench, conceal, conduit, corrugate, coulee, couloir, countermine, coupure, course, cover, crack, cranny, crash-land, crevasse, crevice, crimp, cut, cut apart, cwm, dado, dam, deep-six, defense, defile, dell, descend, dike, discard, dispose of, ditch, donga, double, double sap, downwind, draw, duct, dugout, dump, earthwork, egress, eighty-six, eliminate, elude, embankment, engrave, ensconce, entrance, entrenchment, escape, evade, excavation, exit, fault, fence, fire trench, fissure, flaw, flume, flute, flying sap, fortified
tunnel, fosse, foxhole, fracture, furrow, gallery, gap, gape, gash, gate, get around, get away from,
get out of, get quit of, get rid of, get shut of, give away,
goffer, gorge, gouge, gravity dam, groin, groove, gulch, gulf, gully, gutter, ha-ha, hide, hole, hydraulic-fill dam, incise, incision, ingress, iron curtain, jam, jettison, jetty, jilt, joint, junk, kennel, kloof, land, leak, leaping weir, levee, level off, light, logjam, milldam, mine, moat, mole, mound, notch, nullah, occult, open, opening, overshoot, pancake, parallel, parapet, part with, pass, passage, passageway, pleat, plow, portcullis, rabbet, rampart, ravine, reject, remove, rent, rifle, rift, rime, rive, roadblock, rock-fill dam,
rupture, rut, sap, scissure, score, scrap, scratch, screen, seam, seawall, secrete, settle down, shake, shake off, shuffle out of,
shutter dam, skirt,
slit, slit trench, slot, slough, split, stone wall, streak, striate, sunk fence, talk down,
throw away, throw out, throw over, throw overboard, toss overboard,
touch down, trench,
trough, troughing, troughway, tunnel, upwind, valley, void, wadi, wall, way, weir, wicket dam, work, wrinkle