tunnel
Americannoun
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an underground passage.
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a passageway, as for trains or automobiles, through or under an obstruction, as a city, mountain, river, harbor, or the like.
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an approximately horizontal gallery or corridor in a mine.
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the burrow of an animal.
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Dialect. a funnel.
verb (used with object)
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to construct a passageway through or under.
to tunnel a mountain.
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to make or excavate (a tunnel or underground passage).
to tunnel a passage under a river.
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to move or proceed by or as if by boring a tunnel.
The river tunneled its way through the mountain.
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to pierce or hollow out, as with tunnels.
verb (used without object)
noun
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an underground passageway, esp one for trains or cars that passes under a mountain, river, or a congested urban area
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any passage or channel through or under something
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a dialect word for funnel
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obsolete the flue of a chimney
verb
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(tr) to make or force (a way) through or under (something)
to tunnel a hole in the wall
to tunnel the cliff
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(intr; foll by through, under, etc) to make or force a way (through or under something)
he tunnelled through the bracken
Other Word Forms
- subtunnel noun
- tunneler noun
- tunneller noun
- tunnellike adjective
- untunneled adjective
- untunnelled adjective
Etymology
Origin of tunnel
1400–50; late Middle English tonel (noun) < Middle French tonele, tonnelle funnel-shaped net, feminine of tonnel cask, diminutive of tonne tun; -elle
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Travel times along the Lincoln and Holland tunnels in and out of Manhattan have also declined sharply.
After lying still on the court for a few seconds, he got up and walked down the tunnel toward the locker room.
From Los Angeles Times
It was then that I noticed the smell that the smoke-filled tunnel had been masking.
From Literature
"Mom, thank you for driving me back and forth to New York when we didn't have enough money to go through the Harlem tunnel, when we were looking for gas money, parking spaces," he said.
From BBC
From the minute we walked out of the tunnel, I just... it was like playing a game where you just know you're going to win.
From BBC
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
