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A water course; a ditch. [Written also rean.] [Prov. Eng.] Macaulay.

A raised line or strip, as of ground thrown up by a plow or left between furrows or ditches, or as on the surface of metal, cloth, or bone, etc.

care or custody; as, the prisoner is safe. But Banquo's safe Ay, my good lord, safe in a ditch he bides. Shak. Safe hit (Baseball), a hit which enables the batter to get to first base even if no error is made by the other side.

A narrow ditch or trench made from the foremost parallel toward the glacis or covert way of a besieged place by digging under cover of gabions, etc. Sap fagot (Mil.), a fascine about three feet long, used in sapping, to close the crevices between the gabions before the parapet is made. -- Sap roller (Mil.), a large ga…

The slope of the ditch nearest the parapet; the escarp.

A work raised in the middle of a wide ditch, to defend it. Crabb.

d having permanent external gills as well as lungs. They inhabit the swamps, lagoons, and ditches of the Southern United States. The more common species (Siren lacertina) is dull lead-gray in color, and becames two feet long.

A kind of covered shed, formerly used by besiegers in filling up and passing the ditch of a besieged place, sapping and mining the wall, or the like. Craig. Sow bread. (Bot.) See Cyclamen. -- Sow bug, or Sowbug (Zoöl.), any one of numerous species of terrestrial Isopoda belonging to Oniscus, Porcellio, and allied gene…

on bare rocks in Europe, and is spreading in parts of America. See Orpine. Virginian, or Ditch, stonecrop, an American plant (Penthorum sedoides).

imp. & p. p. of Sink. Sunk fence, a ditch with a retaining wall, used to divide lands without defacing a landscape; a ha-ha.

To be overflowed or drenched. Ps. vi. 6. Sudden the ditches swell, the meadows swim. Thomson.

A piece of wood or sheet metal fitted into a ditch to dam up the water so as to overflow a field. [U. S.]

An outwork in the main ditch, in front of the curtain, between two bastions. See Illust. of Ravelin.

ch side of the ravelins, to increase their strength, procure additional ground beyond the ditch, or cover the shoulders of the bastions.

To fortify by cutting a ditch, and raising a rampart or breastwork with the earth thrown out of the ditch; to intrench. Pope. No more shall trenching war channel her fields. Shak.

One who trenches; esp., one who cuts or digs ditches.

Prov. Eng.] Another great supper, or undermeal, was made ready for them, coming home from ditching and plowing. Withals (1608). I think I am furnished with Cattern [Catharine] pears for one undermeal. B. Jonson. In a narrower limit than the forty years' undermeal of the seven sleepers. Nash.

A ditch on the outside of the counterscarp, usually full of water.

A very acrid herb (Ranunculus sceleratus) growing in ditches and wet places; -- called also cursed crowfoot.

rounded shape and are armed with glochidiate or branched aculei. Several species occur in ditches, and others are found fossil in flint or hornstone.