trough

noun troughs

1. A long, narrow container, open on top, for feeding or watering animals. One of Harriet's chores was to slop the pigs' trough each morning and evening.
2. Any similarly shaped container. Now, covered concrete troughs to house the cables are laid parallel with the railway lines, cheapening maintenance because of improved accessibility for inspection and repair.
3. Australia, New Zealand A rectangular container used for washing or rinsing clothes. Ernest threw his paint brushes into a kind of trough he had fashioned from sheet metal that he kept in the sink.
4. A short, narrow canal designed to hold water until it drains or evaporates. There was a small trough that the sump pump emptied into; it was filled with mosquito larvae.
5. colloquial An undivided metal urinal (plumbing fixture)
6. Canada A gutter under the eaves of a building; an eaves trough. The troughs were filled with leaves and needed clearing.
7. Australia, New Zealand A channel for conveying water or other farm liquids (such as milk) from place to place by gravity; any ‘U’ or ‘V’ cross-sectioned irrigation channel.
8. A long, narrow depression between waves or ridges; the low portion of a wave cycle. The buoy bobbed between the crests and troughs of the waves moving across the bay.
9. A low turning point or a local minimum of a business cycle.

   Opposite: peak

10. A linear atmospheric depression associated with a weather front.

Similar: manger

verb troughs · troughing · troughed

1. To eat in a vulgar style, as if from a trough. He troughed his way through three meat pies.

noun Troughs

1. Alternative letter-case form of trough