retrench

About 0.09 uses per million words.

Meaning

1. verb To cut down or reduce. To terminate the employment of a worker to reduce the size of a workforce; to make redundant.
2. verb To terminate the employment of a worker to reduce the size of a workforce; to make redundant.
3. verb To live less expensively; to economize.
4. verb To confine; to limit; to restrict.
5. verb To furnish with a retrenchment (a defensive work within a fortification).

   to retrench bastions

6. verb To abridge; to curtail.
7. verb To take up a new defensive position.

   We must retrench and try to hold on long enough for products in development to reach the market or we will be out of business.

8. verb To dig or redig a trench where one already exists.

Similar words

cut back abridge pare shrink reduce reduct curtail draw in shorten cut down

Often followed by

the and in their his on or all a

Word family

retrenched retrenches retrenching