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Tunnel

//ˈtʌn(ə)l// name, noun, verb

Definitions

Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A locality in the City of Launceston, northern Tasmania, Australia.
Noun
  1. 1
    An underground or underwater passage.

    "In 1865 an outfit called the East London Railway Company bought the Brunel tunnel for £800,000, and in 1869 they opened a railway through it."

  2. 2
    a passageway through or under something, usually underground (especially one for trains or cars) wordnet
  3. 3
    A passage through or under some obstacle.

    "But very soon he grew to like it, for the Boy used to talk to him, and made nice tunnels for him under the bedclothes that he said were like the burrows the real rabbits lived in."

  4. 4
    a hole made by an animal, usually for shelter wordnet
  5. 5
    A hole in the ground made by an animal, a burrow.
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  1. 6
    A wrapper for a protocol that cannot otherwise be used because it is unsupported, blocked, or insecure.
  2. 7
    A vessel with a broad mouth at one end, a pipe or tube at the other, for conveying liquor, fluids, etc., into casks, bottles, or other vessels; a funnel.
  3. 8
    The opening of a chimney for the passage of smoke; a flue.

    "And one great chimney, whose long tonnell thence, / The smoke forth threw"

  4. 9
    A level passage driven across the measures, or at right angles to veins which it is desired to reach; distinguished from the drift, or gangway, which is led along the vein when reached by the tunnel.
  5. 10
    Anything that resembles a tunnel. figuratively

    "Especially in the Eden Valley, trees create what is almost a green tunnel (particularly in summer)."

Verb
  1. 1
    To make a tunnel through or under something; to burrow. transitive

    "The 1955 Act gave powers for compulsory acquisition of "easements", or permission to tunnel beneath dwelling houses instead of, as had previously been necessary, following approximately the course of surface roads."

  2. 2
    force a way through wordnet
  3. 3
    To dig a tunnel. intransitive
  4. 4
    move through by or as by digging wordnet
  5. 5
    To transmit something through a tunnel (wrapper for an insecure or unsupported protocol).
Show 2 more definitions
  1. 6
    To insert a catheter into a vein to allow long-term use. transitive
  2. 7
    To undergo the quantum-mechanical phenomenon where a particle penetrates through a barrier that it classically cannot surmount.

Etymology

Etymology 1

From Middle French tonnelle (“net”) or tonel (“cask”), diminutive of Old French tonne (“cask”), a word of uncertain origin and affiliation. Related to Old English tunne (“tun; cask; barrel”). More at tun.

Etymology 2

From Middle French tonnelle (“net”) or tonel (“cask”), diminutive of Old French tonne (“cask”), a word of uncertain origin and affiliation. Related to Old English tunne (“tun; cask; barrel”). More at tun.

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