Trough sb.

Forms: 1–2 troʓ, (troh), 4 trowȝ, trouȝ, 4–6 trowe, 4–7 (8–9 dial.) trow, 5–6 trogh, troghe, Sc. trouch (also 9 Sc. dial.), 5–7 troughe, trowgh, trowghe, (5 troȝ, troue, trowh, trowegh, 6 trouthe, troh, trogh, troght, Sc. troch (also 9 Sc. dial.), trowch, -t, truch, troich, troucht, troycht, troyt, 7 traught), 5– trough; β. 6 troffe, troofe, 7 trof, trofe, trouff; γ. 5 throwhe, 6 throuh, Sc. throch, -t, 7 through. [Com. Teutonic: OE. troʓ, OFris. trog, OS. trog (MLG., LG., EFris. trog, MDu. troch(-gh), Du. trog), OHG., MHG. troc (trog), Ger. trog, ON. trog (Sw. tråg, Da. trug, Norw. dial. trog, trugh (traug, trau):—OTeut. *truʓo^z, Indo-Eur. *druko-, deriv. of dru, TREE, wood, timber; primary meaning ‘wooden vessel.’]

  1.  A narrow open box-like vessel, of V-shaped or curved section, made of wood, stone, metal, or earthenware, and often a fixture, to contain liquid; esp. a drinking-vessel for domestic animals; also, a tank or vat used for washing, kneading, brewing, tanning, fulling, and various other purposes. Often with prefix, as drinking-, hog-, horse-, kneading-, pig-, water-trough, etc.: see the first element.)

  α.  c. 725.  Corpus Gloss. (O.E.T.), 425. Canthera, troʓ.

a. 800.  Erfurt Gloss., 1140. Albeus (v), genus vasis, troʓ.

c. 950.  Lindisf. Gosp., John xiii. 5. Soðða sende þat uæter in troʓ and ongann geðoa foet ðara ðeʓna.

c. 1000.  Sax. Leechd., II. 68. Do on troh hate stanas. Ibid., 326. ʓecnua ealle wel, leʓe on hatne stan on troʓe, ʓeot hwon wæteres on.

11[?].  Rec. Gifts of Adeluuold (963–84), in Birch, Cart. Sax., III. 367. vi biden-fate & ii cuflas & þry troʓas & lead & trefet.

c. 1325.  Gloss. W. de Bibbesw., in Wright, Voc., 155. De un rastuer, a douw-ribbe, le auge, a trow.

1382.  Wyclif, Gen. xxiv. 20. She, heldynge out the water pot into the water trowis,… ȝaue to alle the camelis.

c. 1386.  Chaucer, Reeve’s T., 123. Thanne wil I be bynethe … And se how þat the Mele falles doun In to the trough [v.rr. trogh, trow, troughe].

c. 1410.  Master of Game (MS. Digby 182), xxxiii. Þe trowegh fillede with clene water.

c. 1460.  Registr. Aberdon. (Maitl. Cl.), II. 85. In brasina vnum plumbum cum cuppa que dicitur Masfate vel caldarium. et algeam que dicitur le trovch.

1485.  Naval Acc. Hen. VII. (1896), 51. Moldyng trowghes [for leaden shot].

a. 1500.  Kyng & Hermit, 486, in Hazl., E. P. P., I. 32. Till two trowys he gan him lede; Off venyson there was many brede.

1502.  Arnolde, Chron. (1811), 188. Take iij. C. weight orchell drye grounde and doo it in a trouthe.

1535.  Aberdeen Regr. XV. (Jam.). Ane troycht & tua aiking buyrdis.

1536.  Abstr. Protocols Town Clerks Glasgow (1897), IV. 87. Ane lyme trowcht.

1546.  Inv. Ch. Goods (Surtees No. 97), 132. One stone troght.

a. 1550[?].  Freiris of Berwyk, 210, in Dunbar’s Poems (S.T.S.), 292. Hyd ȝou … Into ȝone troich … It held a boll of meill quhen that we buke.

1583.  in Wadley, Bristol Wills (1886), 234. My howse w^ch I [a tanner] nowe dwell in w^th vates and trowes.

1632.  in E. B. Jupp, Carpenters’ Co. (1848), 301. All manner of traughts for Bakers.

1710–1.  Swift, Jrnl. to Stella, 25 March. We have let Guiscard be buried at last, after shewing him pickled in a trough this fortnight for two pence apiece.

1789.  Mrs. Piozzi, Journ. France, I. 245. The old original trough at the corner of the road.

1815.  J. Smith, Panorama Sci. & Art, II. 534. In troughs of water mixed with fuller’s earth.

1859.  G. Meredith, Juggling Jerry, x. You shan’t beg from the troughs and tubs.

  β.  1545.  Joye, Exp. Dan. iv. 56. The vnthrifty sone … at last was compelled to come to the hoggis troffe for hunger.

1574.  N. Daniel, in Grosart, Spenser’s Wks., I. 422. A pulpitt, many swynes troofe better.

1620.  Inv., in Essex Rev. (1907), XVI. 206. A payer of Quarnes, a kneedinge trof, and shellves 2s. Ibid. (1626), (1906), XV. 67. One knedinge trofe.

1688.  R. Holme, Armoury, III. xx. (Roxb.), 246/2. A Tallow Trough, and of some termed a Trouff, it is to let the Tallow in working drop or run into it.

  γ.  c. 1440.  Promp. Parv., 503/2. Throwhe, vessel (K., S. trow, P. trough), alveus.

a. 1539.  Cartular. Abb. de Rievalle (Surtees), 340. The Bruehouse vi kelynge throuhs of lede, ii coper vesselles.

1560.  Aberdeen Regr. (1844), 329. Lawaris and throchtis of brass.

a. 1660.  Contemp. Hist. Irel. (Ir. Archæol. Soc.), I. 254. Some … burned the through, broke the kievve, demolished the house.

  b.  A small vessel of similar shape used in chemistry, photography, microscopy, etc.

1819.  Pantologia, s.v., In [operations with] gasses absorbable by water the trough must be filled … with mercury.

1826.  Pneumatic trough [see PNEUMATIC 2].

1827.  Faraday, Chem. Manip., i. 20. The mercurial trough.

1831.  Brewster, Nat. Magic, iv. (1833), 79. A trough having two of its sides parallel, and made of plate glass.

1853.  W. Gregory, Inorg. Chem. (ed. 3), 68. Closing the tube with the finger, and inverting it, with the open end under water in a basin or trough.

  c.  fig. In contempt, A person who is a mere receptacle for liquor; a toper.

1613.  Fletcher, etc., Captain, IV. iii. This drunken trowgh has killed him.

1899.  Lumsden, Edinburgh Poems & Songs, 131. A thae trochs are drucken slochs.

  2.  In spec. uses: a. An oblong vessel containing the water in which a grindstone runs; also transf. the stone itself, or the place where it stands; a workman’s compartment in a grindery.

1725.  T. Thomas, in Portland Papers VI. (Hist. MSS. Comm.), 144. Most of their wheels and troughs (as they call those places where these grindstones are).

1743.  in H. S. Wyndham, Ann. Cov. Gard. Theatre (1906), II. 312. A grindstone handle and trough.

1839.  S. Roberts, Tom & Charles, in Yorkshire Tales, 130. The building itself is generally the property of one person, but he lets off, to different grinders, what are denominated the Troughs, or the parts in which each grinding-stone is fixed.

1884.  W. H. Rideing, in Harper’s Mag., June, 79/1. The lower part of the stones touches a long vessel containing water, and by a technical peculiarity each stone is called a ‘trough.’

1892.  Labour Commission Gloss., s.v., It is customary to speak of the trough not only as the actual vessel … but as … the portion of the room containing the trough. In this sense … local.

  b.  An oblong box with divisions serving as the cells of a voltaic battery; also short for trough-battery.

1806.  Med. Jrnl., XV. 150. Having constructed a very powerful Galvanic trough, I have tried its effects … with very satisfactory results. Ibid., 153. My trough contains about 1280 square inches of metallic surface; at first I did not use above four or five pair of plates.

1815.  J. Smith, Panorama Sci. & Art, II. 277. This apparatus … combines the principle of the battery with glasses and that of the common trough.

1866.  R. M. Ferguson, Electr., § 79. The inner surface of the trough is coated with an insulating substance.

  c.  Mining. (a) An oblong tank in which ores are washed; a rocker or buddle; (b) A passage cut through a wall or pillar of coal: = THIRLING vbl. sb.¹ 2 (Cent. Dict. Suppl., 1909).

1877.  Knight, Dict. Mech., Trough..., a frame, vat, buddle, or rocker in which ores or slimes are washed and sorted.

  d.  See quot.

1877.  Knight, Dict. Mech., Trough,… the tray or vat containing the metallic solution used in electro-plating.

  e.  Typog. A metal-lined box in which stones, inking-rollers, and forms are washed.

1891.  in Cent. Dict.

1892.  Labour Commission Gloss., s.v., A trough in the printing industry is a box, lined with lead, with pieces of wood laid across for stones to rest on; the water runs off from the stone into the trough.

  3.  † A small primitive boat; sometimes app. a canoe hollowed out of a solid block of wood (obs.); also locally applied to various kinds of boats or barges: see TROW sb.²

c. 893.  K. Ælfred, Oros., II. v. § 6. He eft wæs biddende anes lytles troʓes æt anum earman men.

1531–2.  Act 23 Hen. VIII., c. 12 § 1. Their troughes barges botes and other vessells passing … on the said River of Severne.

1555.  R. Tomson, in Hakluyt, Voy. (1600), III. 454. A great caue or ditch of water … where come euery morning at the break of the day twentie or thirtie Canoas, or troughes of the Indians.

1570.  Levins, Manip., 217/24. A Trough, bote, linter.

1574.  R. Eden trans. Taisner’s De Natura Magnetis, Ded. If none had proceeded further then the inuentions of our predecessors, we … had yet haue sayled in troughes or in boates.

1633.  T. Stafford, Pac. Hib., III. xvii. (1810), 658. No boats nor troughs to passe them over into Connaght.

1869.  Pall Mall G., 21 Sept., 6. In Weymouth Bay … Four fishermen went out in a boat known as a ‘trough,’ a little flat-bottomed craft, to fish for herrings.

  4.  A stone tomb or coffin. Cf. THROUGH sb.¹ 2. Now dial.

1494.  Fabyan, Chron., VI. ccxiii. 230. In case that ye may kepe my body from tourment,… laye it in a troughe of stone, and hyll it with lede close and iuste [cf. quot. c. 1400 s.v. THROUGH sb.¹ 2 β].

1610.  Holland, Camden’s Brit. (1637), 486. A little trough or coffin, very cunningly and finely wrought of Marble.

a. 1682.  Sir T. Browne, Tracts, ix. 155. In one of the Mounts … there were found three Troughs containing broken Bones.

1876.  Mid-Yorks. Gloss., Trough..., a coffin, of old shape; a stone cistern.

  † b.  App. confused with THROUGH sb.¹ 3, a flat grave-stone. Obs.

1501.  Bury Wills (Camden), 83. Also I wyll that the tabernacle of Seynt Jamys … and the troues of the auter ther by, be well and suffyciently peyntyd.

1588.  Knaresborough Wills (Surtees), I. 163. My bodye to be buryed in Fuiston churche yeard under my grandfather trough.

  5.  A channel, pipe, or trunk for conveying water; a conduit; a gutter fixed under the eaves of a building; Sc. (pl.) the channel conducting the water to a mill-wheel. Now dial. (usually trow).

1398.  Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XVII. cxxi. (Tollem. MS.). Trowes and condites made of pine tre, and leyde deep under erþe dureþ many ȝeres.

1554.  Burgh Rec. Edinb. (1871), II. 309. The beitting and mending of the fyve Commoun Mylnis, making of thair haill watter wallis, scheitts and trouchtis.

1555.  W. Watreman, Fardle Facions, Pref. 10. By conduicte of pipes and troughes, and such other conueyance.

1678.  Phillips (ed. 4), Trough,… a hollow thing made of Boards, and lying open for the Conveyance of Water.

1792.  A. Young, Trav. France, 137. All the houses at Nancy have tin eave troughs and pipes.

1808–18.  Jamieson, Trow, the wooden spout in which water is carried to a mill-wheel. Ibid. (1825), Trows s. pl., properly … the troughs which conduct the water to the mill-wheel.

1881.  Raymond, Mining Gloss., Trow, a wooden channel for air or water.

1901.  Lawson, Remin. Dollar Acad., 112. He washed himself … in the small lade or ‘trows’ which conveyed the water from the burn at the bleaching-green.

  6.  A hollow or valley resembling a trough; the bed or channel of a stream, or the depressed tract through which it flows; spec. in Geol. a basin-shaped depression, a syncline (longer than broad).

1513.  Douglas, Æneis, IX. i. 76. Lyke as sum tyme Ganges, the flude Indane,… In hys deip trowch now flowis esely.

1719.  Hamilton, Ep. to Ramsay, 24 July, xvii. Mony a lang and weary wimple, Like trough of Clyde.

1796.  W. Marshall, W. England, II. 175. Mountain heights … partially severed by deep rich Vallies or ‘Troughs’—as they are called.

1819.  Lockhart, Peter’s Lett., lxxiv. III. 299. The whole valley, or strath, or trough of the Clyde.

1854.  Murchison, Siluria, viii. 155. These schists and limestones are overlain in the contiguous troughs by other rocks.

1862.  W. Cory, Lett. & Jrnls. (1897), 78. The long troughs of woodland where the deer and the streamlets wander.

1883.  Good Words, July, 438/2. It is therefore a question how far the ocean troughs may have the antiquity assigned to them.

  b.  Trough of the sea, the hollow on the surface between two waves. Also fig.

a. 1625.  Nomenclator Navalis (Harl. MS. 2301). Y^e Trowgh of the Sea … when wee lay a Shipp vnder the Sea, (… her broadeside to the Sea) wee saie shee lies in ye Trowgh of the Sea.

1699.  Dampier, Voy., II. III. 64. The ship by the mistake of him that con’d, broched to, and lay in the trough of the Sea.

1762–9.  Falconer, Shipwr., II. 890. Still in the yawning trough the vessel reels, Ingulf’d beneath two fluctuating hills.

1856.  Mrs. Stowe, Dred, xvii. Tom … never is himself; always up on a wave, or down in the trough.

1886.  Froude, Oceana, ii. 21. The engines stopped, the ship lay rolling in the trough of the sea broadside on to the waves.

  c.  Meteorol. A line or elongated region of lower barometric pressure between two regions of higher.

1882.  W. Marriott in Standard, 26 Dec., 7/4. At right angles to the path of a cyclone there is always a line running through the centre, called the trough, where the barometer reading is the lowest.

1887.  R. Abercromby, Weather, ii. (1888), 30. If we look at the barometer-trace at any one place, the ‘ups’ and ‘downs’ suggest the analogy of waves, so that the lowest part of a trace may be called a ‘trough.’

1904.  Westm. Gaz., 10 May, 6/2. A long trough of low barometric pressure now lies over the southern parts of our islands.

  d.  Stat. The low point of a graphical chart.

1917.  Clearwater Republican (ID), 16 March, 3/3. If he cares to consult the graphs, showing peaks an[d] troughs of live stock caused by seasonable breeding, he may gain a lot of information as to the time it would be wise for him to have his animals fat.

  7.  attrib. and Comb., as trough form, frame, -meat, plate (sense 2 b), -sailing (see sense 3), -stone; trough-like, -shaped adjs.; also trough battery, a voltaic battery consisting of a number of cells in a trough (sense 2 b); trough-closet: see quot.; trough core, Geol.: see quot.; trough-current, the current produced by a moving vessel; trough fault, Geol.: see quot.; trough flooring, steel troughing riveted together to form the floor of a bridge; trough girder, an iron girder shaped like a trough; trough gutter, a box-like channel for drainage; a rain-water pipe of this form; trough-joint, trough limb, Geol.: see quots.; trough mercury, the mercury used in a pneumatic trough; trough roof, U.S.: see quot.; trough shell, a mollusk of the family Mactridæ.

1841.  Encycl. Brit. (ed. 7), XXI. 665/2. A valuable modification of the ‘couronne des tasses,’ called the *trough battery.

1878.  G. Prescott, Sp. Telephone, 260. A trough battery of six cells.

1870.  Corfield, Treatm. Sewage, 121. What are called *trough-closets have been erected in Liverpool…. A long trough is placed below and behind the seats of a series of closets.

1911.  Encycl. Brit., X. 598. The innermost strata in a fold constitute the ‘core,’ arch-core, or *trough core.

1843.  Mech. Mag., XXXVIII. 70/1. The *trough-current can only act against the front of the screw and the bevelled or slanting sides of the recess.

1883.  Gresley, Gloss. Coal Mining, *Trough fault, a wedge-shaped fault, or, more correctly, a mass of rock, coal, &c., let down in between two faults.

1911.  Encycl. Brit., IV. 538. The *trough flooring, 3/8 in. thick and 6 in. deep, is rivetted to the longitudinals.

1876.  Preece & Sivewright, Telegraphy, 244. In the *trough form of battery this [short circuit] is caused by leakage.

1827.  Faraday, Chem. Manip., xv. (1842), 318. A flap fixed to this end of the *trough frame, which … may be used when there is occasion.

1883.  Specif. Alnwick & Cornhill Railw., 48. The superstructure is to consist of two wrought-iron *trough girders carrying the rails.

1856.  Brees, Gloss. Terms, *Trough gutter, a sort of sunk or enclosed gutter, about 8 or 10 inches wide, and adopted with advantage in exposed situations. The wooden trunks employed as gutters for sheds and common buildings … are also known by this name.

1865.  Page, Handbk. Geol. Terms (ed. 2), *Trough-joint, the fissure or joint which frequently accompanies the abrupt bending of strata passing through the middle of the curvature.

1839.  De la Beche, Rep. Geol. Cornwall, etc., iii. 43. These rocks rested in a *trough-like cavity extending east and west.

1869.  Tozer, Highl. Turkey, II. 109. A trough-like depression between two ridges.

1911.  Encycl. Brit., X. 598. In a fold of this kind we have an ‘arch limb,’ a middle limb, and a floor or *‘trough limb.’

1844.  H. Stephens, Bk. Farm, II. 71. The whole have hay or *trough-meat … on wet or stormy nights.

1827.  Faraday, Chem. Manip., xx. (1842), 554. These chemical cleansings of the *trough mercury are intended to destroy the disposition which exists in impure mercury to form films upon its surface. Ibid., xvii. (1842), 457. The wires are soldered to plates equal in size to those of the troughs,… though they may not touch the *trough plates.

1905.  U.S. Dept. Agric., Bureau Forestry, Bulletin lxi. *Trough roof, a roof on a logging camp or barn, made of small logs split lengthwise, hollowed into troughs and laid from ridge pole to eaves.

1855.  J. D. Maclaren, in Mem., vii. (1861), 134. I could almost resume the bathing and the *trough-sailing.

1871.  Nesbitt, Catal. Slade Coll. Glass, 77. A *trough-shaped spout.

1867.  Lovell, Edible Mollusks, 152. Mactra solida, Linnæus. *Trough shell.

1470–1.  Durham Acc. Rolls (Surtees), 643. Pro nova factura unius le *Troughstane pro aqueductu in gardino.

1587.  Wills & Inv. N. C. (Surtees), II. 157. In the brewhowsse. One brew lead … j maskefatte and a trogh-stone.

1854.  Murchison, Siluria, xiii. 329. Yellow sandstones … extensively used as … trough-stones.

  Hence Troughful, as much as a trough will hold; Troughster, one who feeds at a (or the public) trough, a pig; Troughwise adv., as or like a trough; Troughy a., characterized by troughs.

1813.  Leeds Intelligencer, 19 April, 4/1.

1877.  [May Laffan], Honourable Miss Ferrard, I. v. 128. A noise not unlike that of one of his four-footed belongings in the forecastle when engaged at a troughful of buttermilk.

1891.  Daily News, 30 Oct., 5/6. Wheaten flour, which I distributed among them by troughfulls.

  fig.  1885.  Deseret News, 24 Feb., 2/2. Miss Kate Field who has been dosing the readers of the New York World with Sunday troughfuls of hogwash about the ‘Mormons,’ is now here prepared to deal out similar stuff to the pious puritans of the District of Columbia.

1892.  G. Meredith, Ode to Comic Spirit, 19. The poor smoke Struck from a puff-ball, or the *troughster’s grunt.

1919.  Princeton (MN) Union, 4 June, 4/2. If this chronic public troughster has drawn the sinecure named.

1551.  Robinson, trans. More’s Utop., I. (1895), 31. The shyppes that they founde fyrste were made playne, flatte, and broade in the botome, *troughewyse.

1890.  Boston Weekly Globe, 15 Feb., 6/3. A Canadian shanty roof is neither tiled nor shingled, but ‘scooped.’ What is a ‘scoop?’ It is a piece of timber something like a very long railway tie, one side of which is hollowed out, trough-wise, clear to the ends.

1912.  Boston Evening Transcript, 23 Nov., 18/5. On the swells that rolled down under the lash of the northwester, the steamer was yawing and wallowing trough-wise, churning her course up the bay.

1811.  Lancaster Gaz., 9 Nov., 4/1. The produce of last harvest rises light, thin, and *troughy, in those districts that were affected with the blight.

1857.  Bristol Mercury, 5 Sept., 7/4. In a few instances, arising from the rapidity with which they [wheats] ripened, they were rather ‘troughy.’

1869.  J. Harrison, Three Ballads, 34.

1877.  J. T. Beer, Prophet of Nineveh, I. iv. 58. She plunges heavy in the troughy seas.