Search the Dictionary

To dig a ditch or ditches in; to drain by a ditch or ditches; as, to ditch moist land.

One who digs ditches.

To bury in, or cast into, a ditch. Bp. Hall.

To dig an underground ditches in, so as to drain the surface; to underdrain; as, to underditch a field or a farm.

A letting or renting, esp. a license to inclose land in a forest with a low hedge and a ditch, under a yearly rent.

Change of a non-sibilant letter to a sibilant, as of -tion to - shun, duke to ditch.

A ditcher; a drain digger. [Prov. Eng.]

A wall built across the ditch of a fortification, with a sluice gate to regulate the height of water in the ditch on both sides of the wall.

A narrow shelf or path between the bottom of a parapet and the ditch.

t well marked or easily discernible; hidden; unseen; concealed; as, a blind path; a blind ditch.

A work made across or in the ditch, to protect it from the enemy, or to serve as a covered passageway.

A dich or drain along the side of a hill to catch the surface water; also, a ditch at the side of a canal to catch the surplus water.

A ditch or drain for catching water. See Catchdrain.

; to hide; to be concealed; to be included or involved darkly. We 'll couch in the castle ditch, till we see the light of our fairies. Shak. The half-hidden, hallf-revealed wonders, that yet couch beneath the words of the Scripture. I. Taylor.

The exterior slope or wall of the ditch; -- sometimes, the whole covered way, beyond the ditch, with its parapet and glacis; as, the enemy have lodged themselves on the counterscarp.

garrisonn an open line of communication around the works, and a standing place beyond the ditch. See Illust. of Ravelin.

A drain trench, in a ditch or moat; -- called also cuvette.

de by cutting or digging; a furrow; a groove; as, a cut for a railroad. This great cut or ditch Secostris . . . purposed to have made a great deal wider and deeper. Knolles.

One who defends; a defender. The rampiers and ditches which the defendants had cast up. Spotswood.

A mine; a quarry; a pit dug; a ditch. [Written also delft, and delve.] [Obs.] The delfts would be so flown with waters, that no gins or machines could . . . keep them dry. Ray.