vbl. sb. [f. TUNNEL v. (and sb.) + -ING1.]
I. The action of TUNNEL v.
1. The use of a tunnel-net to catch birds.
1687. Roy. Proclam., 30 July, in Lond. Gaz., No. 2267/1. That henceforward none presume,… to Kill or Destroy any Hare, Partridge [etc.] by Hunting, Hawking,… Tunnelling, Gins, or any way whatsoever.
1796. Anstey, Pleader’s Guide (1803), 129. Acts ’gainst tunneling and snaring.
1819. Sporting Mag., IV. 208. It is neither very dark nor very light, in tunnelling for partridges.
2. The work or process of making a tunnel; excavation of, or by, a tunnel.
1810. J. T., in Risdon’s Surv. Devon, p. xxix. This is the Tavistock canal, which is … attended with the grand operations of tunnelling.
1871. Proctor, Light Sc., 153. Any inaccuracy in the direction of the two tunnellings would have been fatal to the success of the work.
attrib. 1812. Sir R. Wilson, Diary, in Life (1862), I. 377. The excavations are certainly some of nature’s most surprising tunnelling achievements.
1871. Daily News, 25 April. A new tunnelling machine … was exhibited at the meeting of the British Association last year.
† b. The lining of a shaft or pit with tubbing.
1686. Plot, Staffordsh., ii. 98. The Art of tunnelling much used in Cheshire to keep out the freshes.
II. 3. concr. Work of the nature of a tunnel; subterranean excavation for a canal, road, or railway; a tunnel, or tunnels collectively.
1795. J. Phillips, Hist. Inland Navig., Add. 131. Another navigable cut…, principally tunneling, will shorten the line four miles.
1798. Monthly Mag., July, 74. 900 yards of tunneling.
1894. Daily News, 22 Jan., 4/8. One of the fat, pink, repulsive-looking grubs, coiled up in one of the wide tunnellings that have ruined the tree.
