trenchant

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English

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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Borrowed into Middle English from Old French trenchant, the present participle of trenchier (to cut).

Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): /ˈtɹɛnʃənt/
  • Audio (US):(file)

Adjective

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trenchant (comparative more trenchant, superlative most trenchant)

  1. (chiefly archaic) Fitted to trench or cut; gutting; sharp.
    • 1663, Samuel Butler, Hudibras, part 1, canto 1:
      The trenchant blade, Toledo trusty, / For want of fighting was grown rusty, / And ate into itself, for lack / Of somebody to hew and hack.
    1. (zoology, of teeth) Adapted for tearing into flesh.
      • 1971, Thomas H. V. Rich, Deltatheridia, Carnivora, and Condylarthra (Mammalia) of the Early Eocene, Paris Basin, France:
        The trenchant talonid is a character of some miacids and distinguishes these teeth from the hyaenodontids and oxyaenids.
  2. (figuratively) Keen; biting; vigorously articulate and effective; severe.
    trenchant wit
    • 1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, [], →OCLC, part I, pages 210–211:
      His eyes, of the usual blue, were perhaps remarkably cold, and he certainly could make his glance fall on one as trenchant and heavy as an axe.
    • 2011, Jay A. Gertzman, Bookleggers and Smuthounds: The Trade in Erotica, 1920-1940:
      His trenchant criticisms of the Church's repression [] include a discussion of the considerable 1938 success of the fledgling NODL in getting magazines removed from various points of sale.

Translations

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Middle French

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Etymology

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Old French trenchant.

Noun

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trenchant m or f (plural trenchans)

  1. sharp

Descendants

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  • French: tranchant

Old French

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Adjective

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trenchant m (oblique and nominative feminine singular trenchant or trenchante)

  1. sharp; razor sharp

Declension

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Verb

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trenchant

  1. present participle of trenchier