retrenchment.
A curtailment or reduction.
Meaning & usage
A curtailment or reduction.
A curtailment or reduction. An act of reducing expenses; economizing.
A curtailment or reduction. An act of terminating the employment of a worker or making an employee redundant, often to reduce expenses; a layoff.
Withdrawal.
Where this word comes from
Probably partly from both of the following: * Middle French retrenchement, retranchement (“removal of a portion from a larger whole; reduction of expenses”) (modern French retranchement (“deduction, subtraction”)), from retrancher, retranchier (“to get rid of, remove completely; to remove a portion from a larger whole; to reduce expenses; to deprive (oneself) of”) [and other forms] + -ment (suffix forming nouns usually of an action or a state resulting from an action). Retrancher and retranchier are derived from Old French re- (prefix meaning ‘again, once more’) + tranchier, trenchier (“to cut”) [and other forms] (modern French trancher (“to slice”)); the further etymology is uncertain, but one possibility is that the Old French words are from Latin truncāre, the present active infinitive of truncō (“to mutilate by cutting off pieces; to truncate”), from truncus (“tree trunk; piece cut off”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *twerḱ- (“to carve; to cut off, trim”). * retrench (“to cut down, reduce; to reduce expenses; to make (an employee) redundant”) + -ment. Retrench is derived from Middle French retrancher, retranchier: see above.
A defensive work constructed within a fortification to make it more defensible by allowing defenders to retreat into and fight from it even after the enemy has taken the outer work.
Where this word comes from
Probably either from: * Middle French retranchement (“defensive work”) (modern French retranchement (“entrenchment”)), from re- (prefix meaning ‘again, once more’) + tranche (“trench”) + -ment (suffix forming nouns usually of an action or a state resulting from an action); or * retrench (“to construct one or more retrenchments; to protect using retrenchments; to fortify”) + -ment. Retrench is probably derived from Middle French retrancher, retranchier (“to fortify with trenches and banks”), from Old French re- + tranchier, trenchier (“to cut”); see further at etymology 1.
The adoption of a defensive and hostile posture; refusal to compromise, radicalization.
Where this word comes from
Internal formation from retrench (“take up a defensive position”) + -ment, possibly reinforced by misinterpretation of Etymology 1.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.