trawl
trawl Lexical Profile
trawl Game Scores & Validity
• verb
To fish by dragging a large wide-mouthed net along the sea bottom or through deep water behind a boat.
"Commercial vessels regularly trawl the coastal waters for cod and haddock."
To search thoroughly through a large collection of records, data, or places in order to find something specific.
"Researchers had to trawl through thousands of digitized newspaper articles to track the historical trend."
• noun
A large, wide-mouthed fishing net dragged by a boat along the bottom of the sea or at a specified depth to catch fish.
"The fishermen hauled the heavy trawl aboard to inspect the morning's catch."
An act of fishing with a trawl net, or a thorough search through a large amount of information or a number of places.
"A systematic trawl through the national archives revealed several previously unpublished letters."
Word Nuance & Usage
'Trawl' is frequently confused with 'troll': to trawl is to drag a wide-mouthed net along the seabed (or figuratively to sift through large volumes of data), whereas to troll is to fish by trailing a baited line behind a boat (or to provoke others online).
• Rhymes for trawl
Word Origin & Etymology
Borrowed in the late 16th century from Middle Dutch tragelen ('to drag'), which is ultimately derived from Latin tragula, meaning 'dragnet'.