Forms: 5–7 tonel, 6 -ell, 6–7 tonnel, -ell, tunell, 6–8 tunnell, (7 tunill), 6– tunnel; see also TONNEL. [a. OF. tonel masc., in mod.F. tonneau tun, cask, and the fem. derivative tonnelle, to which the early Eng. in sense 1 corresponds. The sense of ‘tube, pipe, opening’ and its extensions are of Eng. development, and for that of ‘subterranean passage’ tunnel has been adopted in mod.F. (in Dict. Acad., 1878) from English.]
1. A net for catching partridges or water-fowl, having a pipe-like passage with a wide opening, and narrowing towards the end; a tunnel-net. ? Obs.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 496/2. Tonel, to take byrdys, obvolutorium.
1538. York Wills (Surtees), VI. 85. To Brian Lelome all my partrike nettes called a tonnell.
1611. Cotgr., Tonnelle, a Tunnell, or staulking horse for Partridges.
1616. Surfl. & Markh., Country Farme, 731. To take Partridges with the Tonnell, or Tombrell, there must a man be placed behind a Cow or a Horse, of wood, or of osier, painted in … the fashion of a Cow or a Horse.
1710. Act 9 Anne c. 27 § 5. The pernicious Practice of driving and taking [Wild Fowl] with Hayes Tunnells and other Nets in the Fens.
1822. Sporting Mag., IX. 177. A tunnel … (a net used in taking game).
b. ‘The funnel-shaped conductor leading from the heart to the pound in a pound-net’ (Knight, Dict. Mech. Suppl., 1884).
† 2. The shaft or flue of a chimney. Obs.
1508. Stanbridge, Vulgaria (W. de W.), A vj b. Infumibulum, the tonell [printed towell] of the chymnaye. Ibid. (1510), Vocab. (W. de W.), B ij b. Infunibulum, a tunnell of a chymney.
1530. Palsgr., 282/1. Tonnell [283/2 Tunnell] of a chymney, tuyau.
1595. in Archæologia, LXIV. 374. Opening ye tunnel in ye low bakt mete house.
1680. Audrey, Lives, Bacon (1898), I. 78. The tunnells of the chimneys were carried into the middle of the howse.
c. 1710. Celia Fiennes, Diary (1888), 4. The Chimney is just under the window and the Tunnells runnes upon each side.
1818. Scott, Rob Roy, v. The fire … roared, blazed, and ascended, half in smoke, half in flame, up a huge tunnel, with an opening wide enough to accommodate a stone seat within its ample vault.
† b. A pipe or tube in general. Now rare.
1545. Raynold, Byrth Mankynde, 144. Let the woman set her selfe … on a couar made for the nonce with a tunnel or cundyte.
1601. Holland, Pliny, XVII. xxi. I. 528. Let them passe … through … an earthen pipe or tunnell.
1615. G. Sandys, Trav., 248. It [the island Volcano] had three tunnels whereat it evaporated fire.
1642. Rogers, Naaman (1662), 3. By and with them [miracles] as by Tunnels, the influence, power, and authority of truth might enter and prevaile.
1890. [see TUNNELLED 1 b].
† c. fig. pl. Applied to the nostrils (as a passage for tobacco-smoke). Obs. humorous nonce-use.
1598. B. Jonson, Ev. Man in Hum., I. iii. He dos take this same filthy roguish tabacco,… it would doe a man good to see the fume come forth at ’s tonnells!
3. A funnel. Obs. exc. dial.
a. 1529. Skelton, El. Rummyng, 403. Another … brought a pottel pycher, A tonnel, and a bottell.
1530. Palsgr., 282/1. Tonnell to fyll wyne with, antonnoyr.
1601. Holland, Pliny, XXX. vi. II. 381. Given in drink and swallowed downe by a pipe or tunill.
1662. R. Mathew, Unl. Alch., lxxxix. 157. Be careful that … it fit thy Funnel or Tunnel.
1719. D’Urfey, Pills (1872), III. 251. For the Bottle, you cannot well fill it, Without a Tunnel.
1802. Paley, Nat. Theol., xv. (ed. 2), 286. Cocks, pipes, tunnels, for transferring the cyder from one vessel to another.
a. 1825. Forby, Voc. E. Anglia, Tunnel, s. a funnel,… in constant use.
1863. Mrs. Toogood, Yorks. Dial. (MS.). Pour the wine thro the tunnel into the bottle.
4. A subterranean passage; a road-way excavated under ground, esp. under a hill or mountain, or beneath the bed of a river: now most commonly on a railway; also in earliest use on a canal, in a mine, etc. (The chief current sense.)
1782. Pennant, Journey, 52. The most southern tunnel, as it is called, is at Hermitage.
1790. Jane Snow, in A. C. Bower’s Diaries & Corr. (1903), 105. We went through what they call a Tunnel—a passage through the Earth for the convenience of carrying Coals by Water: it is two miles and a half long, fifteen feet wide, the same high.
1792. A. Young, Trav. France, 366. At Orgon the canal de Boisgelin … is a noble work, but unfinished; it passes here in a tunnel four hundred and forty yards through a mountain.
1792. J. Phillips, Hist. Inland Navig., xiv. 363. The celebrated tunnel through Harecastle-hill, Staffordshire, was cut under the direction of … Mr. Brindley [in 1766].
1798. Monthly Mag., July, 74. A cylindrical tunnel under the Thames from Gravesend to Tilbury.
1861. Sat. Rev., 23 Nov., 540. The projectors of a tunnel thirty miles long under the Channel.
1872. Raymond, Statist. Mines & Mining, 15. The vein has been attacked by various tunnels and shafts.
b. An arched drain. dial.
1828. Craven Gloss., Tunnel, an arched drain.
c. A working-hole in the wall of a glass-furnace.
1839. Ure, Dict. Arts, 587. Two principal openings of the furnace…. These are called tunnels. They are destined for the introduction of the pots and the fuel.
d. transf. The burrow of an animal.
1873. Tristram, Moab, vii. 124. The burrows of the mole-rat, which does duty, in the making of runs and molehills, for the common mole, but excavates much larger tunnels.
1886. Burroughs, Signs & Seasons (1895), 179. Through the tunnel of the meadow mouse the water rushes as through a pipe.
e. A canal in an animal body resembling a tunnel, as that of the organ of Corti in the internal ear.
1882. Syd. Soc. Lex., Corti, organ of, a papillary-looking structure, stretching along the whole length of the canalis cochlearis…. It is a sort of tunnel, composed of closely lying arches, the arches of Corti.
1898. P. Manson, Trop. Diseases, xxxiv. 525. The septa between the tunnels may break down and a considerable cavity be thus produced.
5. attrib. and Comb., as tunnel-borer, -boring, darkness, -drain, excavation, -maker, -month, -passage, -way, -worker, -workman; tunnel-like, -shaped adjs.; tunnel-anæmia, = tunnel-disease (a) (Dorland, Med. Dict., 1900–13); tunnel-disease, a disease incident to workers in tunnels, mines, etc.; spec. (a) a form of anæmia caused by an intestinal parasite, the tunnel-worm (Dochmius duodenalis or Ankylostoma duodenale); (b) = CAISSON-disease; † tunnel dish, ? a funnel (= sense 3; cf. TUN-DISH); tunnel-head, (a) the top shaft- or blast-furnace; (b) the point to which the construction of a tunnel has progressed; tunnel-hole, ‘the throat of a blast-furnace’ (Cent. Dict., 1891); tunnel-kiln (see quot.); tunnel-man, a workman employed in making a tunnel; tunnel-net, = sense 1; also a similar net for fishing; tunnel-pit, -shaft, a shaft sunk to the level of a tunnel; tunnel rat, a subterranean denizen; tunnel-sickness, = tunnel-disease; tunnel-vault, = barrel-vault (see BARREL sb. 11); tunnel vision, a vision abnormality; tunnel-weaver, a spider that weaves a tunnel-like underground web; tunnel-worm, the parasitic nematode worm (see tunnel-disease), which causes tunnel-anæmia.
1877. Knight, Dict. Mech., *Tunnel-borer, a ram, operated by compressed air, for making excavations through rock.
1899. Cagney, trans. Jaksch’s Clin. Diagn., vi. (ed. 4), 228. Where a severe form of anæmia occurs in labourers … especially … brick-burners, miners, and tunnel-borers.
1909. Westm. Gaz., 29 Dec., 5/4. No Swiss are employed … because they have enough other work and do not care particularly for such employment as *tunnel-boring.
1877. Raymond, Statist. Mines & Mining, 123. Rich placer-mines formerly existed in many of the gulches, and several *tunnel-claims in the gravel-hills gave excellent profits.
1839–43. Bailey, Festus, xxi. 273. Without God all things are in *tunnel darkness.
1887. 19th Cent., Aug., 149. Italians who died from cholera in digging the Suez Canal, or from *‘tunnel disease’ in the St. Gothard Tunnel.
1898. P. Manson, Trop. Diseases, xxxvi. 537. In Europe it [i.e., ankylostomiasis] is sometimes known as ‘miner’s anæmia’ or ‘tunnel disease,’… in allusion to the notorious Saint Gothard epidemic.
1610. Althorp MS., in Simpkinson, Washingtons (1860), App. p. vii. Itm *tunnell dishes.
1840. Marryat, Olla Podr., III. 317. A long *tunnel drain.
1877. Raymond, Statist. Mines & Mining, 190. A *tunnel drive at the Dutchman Mine, to reach the ledge about 225 feet below the outcrop.
1843. Ht. Martineau, Hill & Valley, 79. They saw the filler at the *tunnel-head pouring in at the doors the materials that were furnished by the kilns.
1905. Daily News, 24 Feb., 6. In the St. Gothard Tunnel there was much disease due to the imperfect sanitation and ventilation at the tunnel-head.
1889. H. Drummond, Trop. Africa, vi. 133. As the Esquimaux heap up snow, building it into the low *tunnel-huts in which they live.
1828. Webster, *Tunnel kiln, a lime-kiln in which coal is burnt, as distinguished from a flame-kiln, in which wood or peat is used.
1885. Fortn. in Waggonette, 51. I know no part of our complex system that requires more constant and careful attention than the *tunnel-like way to the machinery within us.
1894. Smiles, J. Wedgwood, x. 95. He had known him as a … *tunnel-maker.
1897. Daily News, 25 Sept., 7/1. Average daily wages earned…, *tunnel-men, 9s. 10d.
1877. Raymond, Statist. Mines & Mining, 125. The scenes of extensive *tunnel-mining.
1908. Daily Chron., 19 Aug., 1/7. Turning his head towards the *tunnel-mouth.
1721. Bradley, Philos. Acc. Wks. Nat., 131. The Figure of a *Tunnel-Net, disposed for catching all kind of Flies that come into it.
1828. Webster, Tunnel-net, a net with a wide mouth at one end and narrow at the other.
1840. [see TUNNEL v. 1 b].
1883. G. C. Davies, Norfolk Broads, xxii. (1884), 165. The ‘tunnel net’ … is a bow-net 8 or 10 feet long, the extreme end of which is stretched out and tied to a stake.
1908. Sir H. Johnston, Grenfell & Congo, II. xxvi. 746. The *tunnel-passage goes straight to the river.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, III. xx. (Roxb.), 232. The *Tunell pipe by which the water may be poured in.
1828. Webster, *Tunnel-pit, a shaft sunk from the top of the ground to the level of an intended tunnel, for drawing up the earth and stones.
1891. T. Murphy, The Hudson River Tunnel, in Amer. Mag., XXXI. 250/2. It is most interesting to watch the actions of a sedate and experienced old *tunnel rat whenever he happens to encounter, as he frequently does, the sleeping form of a miner.
1966. J. T. Wheeler, in Corsicana (TX) Daily Sun, 20. Special squads of American ‘Tunnel Rats,’ armed with tear gas, explosives and DDT spray bombs, prowl the vast and deadly Viet Cong tunnel system.
1882. Rep. to Ho. Repr. Prec. Met. U. S., 638. *Tunnel-running is expensive, and where the depth … is not supposed to exceed 150 feet, a vertical prospect shaft is often sunk.
1858. Simmonds, Dict. Trade, *Tunnel-shaft.
1826. Kirby & Sp., Entomol., III. xxx. 147. When retracted, they form a *tunnel-shaped cavity, varying in depth.
1903. Strand Mag., July, 98/2. Hundreds … had perished in the darkness and heat of the terrible *‘tunnel sickness.’
1870. Mrs. Whitney, We Girls, ix. Gathers and gores, *tunnel-skirts and barrel-skirts and paniers.
1930. W. Ullman, in Charlotte Observer, 12 Jan., 40/3. *‘Tunnel vision,’ one of the sight limitations that absolutely disqualifies the aviation license applicant, is almost as serious in the case of the motor car driver, many feel.
1883. Century Mag., Oct., 823/2. A *tunnel-way for passengers connects the whole.
1911. Daily News, 1 April, 4. All *tunnel-workers in Switzerland being of this nationality [Italian].
1843. Ht. Martineau, Hill & Valley, 36. The *tunnel-workmen were … going to dinner.
1895. Funk’s Standard Dict., *Tunnel-worm, an anchylostome.
1906. Scott. Rev., 29 March, 338/1. Acute anæmia due to the bite of the so-called tunnel-worm.
Hence Tunnelism, the theory or practice of tunnelling; Tunnelist, one who constructs a tunnel (in quot. 1871 transf. a burrowing animal); Tunnellite, one in favor of a proposed submarine tunnel between England and France; also, an explosive; Tunnelly a., resembling a tunnel.
1799. C. Clarke, Obs. Tunnel Thames, 23, note. A complete system of Tunnellism. Ibid., 14. The Tunnelist and his Friends.
1871. A. Stewart, Nether Lochaber, xxiii. (1883), 138. The velvet coated tunnelists live on worms and insect larvae.
1874. Lady Herbert, trans. Hübner’s Ramble, I. xi. (1878), 169. Having passed through the tunnelly trunk of one of these trees and the interior of the other [Big Trees of Mariposa].
1882. Sat. Rev., 4 March, 261/1. The Tunnellites … can say nothing but that their opponents are panic-mongers.
1882. The Graphic, 29 April, 2/2. Actual inconvenience is harder to bear than possible danger, and, despite the risks of a French invasion, the passengers who had the happiness to be on board the Albert Edward on Tuesday week are now probably ardent Tunnellites to a man.
1912. Latrobe Bulletin, 21 June, 1/2. Mike Papp, aged 35 years, may lose his eyes, as the result of injuries received in the Superior No. 2 mine, yesterday afternoon when a shot of tunnellite, the explosive used in the mine, blew through the coal into his face, burning him in a serious manner.
