retrenchmentnoun詞源 1/ɹɪˈtɹɛn(t)ʃm(ə)nt/

• 1

  A curtailment or reduction.

  • It agrees that redundant services should not be continued but is not unmindful of the fact that too much retrenchment of rail services now may ultimately prove detrimental to the economy of the country.
  • Last year it was announced that electrification of L.M.R. main lines was to be speeded up and that it would be essential for the engineers to have the longest possible occupation of the lines involved; this would mean some retrenchment of passenger train services.
• 2

  A curtailment or reduction.

  • Must my anxious management, my prudent retrenchments, dear Margaretta's savings, all go!
  • From this time, the hand which had ever been ready to supply all our wants real or imaginary, opened less promptly at our demands. My father talked occasionally of retrenchment and economy when some of our extravagant bills came in; but we paid little heed to his remarks on this head. Where could we retrench? In what could we economize? The very idea was absurd.
• 3

  A curtailment or reduction.

• 4

  Withdrawal.

  • Even then—10 long years ago—our disillusionment over past failures, our revulsion against moralistic posturing, our retrenchment from prescribing what was best for other people, our withdrawal symptoms from the exhilarations of overcommitment—all these argued for the perspective of diversity; for lowering our goals.
  • If it is allowed, however, that the theatre of cosmic evolution is endowed with some fixed structure, even a very weak one, then there is a retrenchment from the programme of an evolutionary account of every general law.

retrenchmentnoun詞源 2/ɹɪˈtɹɛn(t)ʃm(ə)nt/

• 1

  datedgovernmentmilitarypoliticsA defensive work constructed within a fortification to make it more defensible by allowing defenders to retreat into and fight from it even after the enemy has taken the outer work.

  • The Half-Moon is a Work always raiſed before the Baſtion's Point, being ſo named from the Lowneſs of its Gorges Cavity, &c. and is to ſecure the Two Faces of the Baſtion; but when the Faces have but a weak Defence from the Ravelin, theſe Works are ſoon made uſeleſs or ruined, and give the Beſieged an opportunity of Lodgment, and may ſerve for Batteries and Flanks againſt the oppoſing Baſtions; however they may be retrenched by Traverſes, yet they will not fail to attack entirely in the Face, or where you have your laſt Retrenchment, alſo that called the Counterguard runs the like Hazard.
  • [I]f there is one Retrenchment in a Work, it is generally thought ſufficient; but it happens much oftener than there is none at all; ſo that one might be apt to think, a Defence like that we have been explaining is only chimerical, if the Sieges of Vienna and Candy, both by the Turks, were not inſtances of the contrary, where there was hardly an inch of Ground either within or without thoſe two Towns, as far as the Extremities of the Glacis, and even beyond them, but what was retrenched and countermined.

retrenchmentnoun詞源 3/ɹɪˈtɹɛn(t)ʃm(ə)nt/

• 1

  governmentpoliticsThe adoption of a defensive and hostile posture; refusal to compromise, radicalization.

  • Confronted by their practices again and again, these individuals and organizations in the gay community have made token gestures to appease the demands of people of color, while in the long run these confrontations have resulted in retrenchment of attitudes and stereotypes by gay whites.
  • Retrenchment—on the left and the right—led to exclusivist, mutually recriminating positions on the film that made reasoned debate almost impossible, as opponents drowned each other out with competing narratives of “victimization” and “pariah” status.