ppl. a. [f. ENTRENCH v. + -ED1.] In senses of the verb. a. Surrounded with a trench; fortified. Also fig. b. Dug out like a trench, excavated.
1570–6. Lambarde, Peramb. Kent (1826), 247. An entrenched ground with three ditches.
c. 1590. Marlowe, Faustus, D 1 a. Inuirond round with ayrie mountaine tops, With walles of flint, and deepe intrenched lakes.
a. 1667. Cowley, To his Majesty, Wk. II. 571. No deeply entrench’d Islands.
1785. Burke, Sp. Fox’s E. India Bill, Wks. X. 229. Their Stativa, or stations … were strong intrenched camps.
1811. Wellington, in Gurw., Disp., VII. 164. An intrenched camp should be marked out.
1861. Times, 23 July. General M’Clellan attacking the entrenched position of the rebels.
