trough

From Middle English trogh, from Old English troh, trog (“a trough, tub, basin, vessel for containing liquids or other materials”), from Proto-West Germanic *trog, from Proto-Germanic *trugą, *trugaz, from Proto-Indo-European *drukós, enlargement of *dóru (“tree”).

See also West Frisian trôch, Dutch trog, German Trog, Danish trug, Swedish tråg; also Middle Irish drochta (“wooden basin”), Old Armenian տարգալ (targal, “ladle, spoon”). More at tree.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /tɹɒf/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• (US) enPR: trôf, IPA^(key): /tɹɔf/
  • (cot–caught merger) enPR: trŏf, IPA^(key): /tɹɑf/

    • Audio (US):

      (file)

• (Canada) IPA^(key): /tɹɒf/
• (US, dialectal) enPR: trôth, IPA^(key): /tɹɔθ/
  • (cot–caught merger) IPA^(key): /tɹɑθ/
• Rhymes: -ɒf

trough (plural troughs)

1. A long, narrow container, open on top, for feeding or watering animals.

   One of Hank's chores was to slop the pigs' trough each morning and evening.

2. Any similarly shaped container.
   • 1961 November, “Talking of Trains: The North Eastern's new rail-mounted piling unit”, in Trains Illustrated, page 646:

     Now, covered concrete troughs to house the cables are laid parallel with the railway lines, cheapening maintenance because of improved accessibility for inspection and repair.

   • 1976, Frederick Bentham, The art of stage lighting, page 233:

     It just clips on the front of the stage without any special trough, has no great power and occupies only one dimmer, […]

   1. (Australia, New Zealand) A rectangular container used for washing or rinsing clothes.

      Ernest threw his paint brushes into a kind of trough he had fashioned from sheet metal that he kept in the sink.

3. A short, narrow canal designed to hold water until it drains or evaporates.

   There was a small trough that the sump pump emptied into; it was filled with mosquito larvae.

4. (colloquial) An undivided metal urinal (plumbing fixture)
5. (Canada) A gutter under the eaves of a building; an eaves trough.

   The troughs were filled with leaves and needed clearing.

6. (agriculture, Australia, New Zealand) A channel for conveying water or other farm liquids (such as milk) from place to place by gravity; any ‘U’ or ‘V’ cross-sectioned irrigation channel.
7. A long, narrow depression between waves or ridges; the low portion of a wave cycle.

   The buoy bobbed between the crests and troughs of the waves moving across the bay.

   The neurologist pointed to a troubling trough in the pattern of his brain-waves.

8. (economics) A low turning point or a local minimum of a business cycle.

   Antonym: peak

9. (meteorology) A linear atmospheric depression associated with a weather front.

• manger (container for feeding animals)

trough (third-person singular simple present troughs, present participle troughing, simple past and past participle troughed)

1. To eat in a vulgar style, as if from a trough.

   He troughed his way through three meat pies.

• Oxford English Dictionary Online

• crib
• ditch
• trench

• Rought, rought

trough

1. Alternative form of trogh