Trawling

noun, verb

noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A commercial fishing technique in which a net is dragged by a moving boat. Not to be confused with trolling, which drags (one or more) lines. countable, uncountable
  2. 2
    A laborious search. countable, uncountable

    "No longer would he have to fear the deportation of Gerald Haxton, who as an American was constantly running that risk in his trawlings through the bars of London."

Verb
  1. 1
    present participle and gerund of trawl form-of, gerund, participle, present

Synonyms

All synonyms
castingfishingwhaling

Example

More examples

"Trawling causes a devastating waste of life in the form of bycatch."

Related phrases

bottom trawlingpair trawling

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.