tunnel

From Middle French tonnelle (“net”) or tonel (“cask”), diminutive of Old French tonne (“cask”), a word of uncertain origin and affiliation. Related to Old English tunne (“tun; cask; barrel”). More at tun.

• IPA^(key): /ˈtʌn(ə)l/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌnəl
• Hyphenation: tun‧nel

tunnel (plural tunnels)

1. An underground or underwater passage.
   • 2012, Andrew Martin, Underground Overground: A passenger's history of the Tube, Profile Books, →ISBN, page 90:

     In 1865 an outfit called the East London Railway Company bought the Brunel tunnel for £800,000, and in 1869 they opened a railway through it.

2. A passage through or under some obstacle.
   • 1921 June, Margery Williams, “The Velveteen Rabbit: Or How Toys Become Real”, in Harper’s Bazar, volume LVI, number 6 (2504 overall), New York, N.Y.: International Magazine Company, →ISSN, →OCLC:

     But very soon he grew to like it, for the Boy used to talk to him, and made nice tunnels for him under the bedclothes that he said were like the burrows the real rabbits lived in.

   • 2020 August 26, Tim Dunn, “Great railway bores of our time!”, in Rail, page 42:

     There are more than 1,500 railway tunnels in Britain and the majority are still in use, carrying working tracks beneath Britain's most inconvenient geographic features.

3. A hole in the ground made by an animal, a burrow.
4. (computing, networking) A wrapper for a protocol that cannot otherwise be used because it is unsupported, blocked, or insecure.
5. A vessel with a broad mouth at one end, a pipe or tube at the other, for conveying liquor, fluids, etc., into casks, bottles, or other vessels; a funnel.
6. The opening of a chimney for the passage of smoke; a flue.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto IX”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 29:

     And one great chimney, whose long tonnell thence, / The smoke forth threw

7. (mining) A level passage driven across the measures, or at right angles to veins which it is desired to reach; distinguished from the drift, or gangway, which is led along the vein when reached by the tunnel.
8. (figurative) Anything that resembles a tunnel.
   • 2021 October 20, Mark Rand, “S&C: a line fit for tourists... and everyone?”, in RAIL, number 942, page 43:

     Especially in the Eden Valley, trees create what is almost a green tunnel (particularly in summer).

• base tunnel
• running tunnel
• summit tunnel

• → Afrikaans: tonnel
• → Armenian: թունել (tʻunel)
• → Czech: tunel
• → Danish: tunnel
• → Dutch: tunnel
• → Finnish: tunneli
• → French: tunnel
  • Haitian Creole: tinèl
  • → Armenian: թիւնէլ (tʻiwnēl)
  • → Ottoman Turkish: تونل (tünel), طونل (tünel)
    • Turkish: tünel
  • → Romanian: tunel
• → German: Tunnel
• → Greek: τούνελ (toúnel)
• → Italian: tunnel
• → Japanese: トンネル
• → Korean: 터널 (teoneol)
• → Norwegian Bokmål: tunnel, tunell
• → Norwegian Nynorsk: tunnel, tunell
• → Polish: tunel
• → Portuguese: túnel
• → Russian: тунне́ль (tunnélʹ)
  • → Kazakh: түнел (tünel)
• → Scottish Gaelic: tunail
• → Serbo-Croatian: tùnēl
• → Spanish: túnel
• → Swedish: tunnel
• → Uzbek: tunnel

tunnel (third-person singular simple present tunnels, present participle (UK) tunnelling or (US) tunneling, simple past and past participle (UK) tunnelled or (US) tunneled)

1. (transitive) To make a tunnel through or under something; to burrow.
   • 1962 October, “London gets its Victoria tube”, in Modern Railways, page 258:

     The 1955 Act gave powers for compulsory acquisition of "easements", or permission to tunnel beneath dwelling houses instead of, as had previously been necessary, following approximately the course of surface roads.

   • 2019 October, Ruth Bagley tells James Abbott, “Crunch time for Heathrow western link”, in Modern Railways, page 74:

     The 6.5km route is agreed from a junction with the relief lines of the Great Western main line to the west of Slough, the new link would tunnel under the M25 to reach Heathrow's Terminal 5 station, where space has been set aside to accommodate services from the west.

2. (intransitive) To dig a tunnel.
3. (computing, networking) To transmit something through a tunnel (wrapper for an insecure or unsupported protocol).
4. (transitive, medicine) To insert a catheter into a vein to allow long-term use.
5. (physics) To undergo the quantum-mechanical phenomenon where a particle penetrates through a barrier that it classically cannot surmount.

• tunnel on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Tunnel (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

• nunlet, unlent

tunnel c (definite singular tunnelen or tunnellen, indefinite plural tunneler or tunneller, definite plural tunnelerne or tunnellerne)

1. tunnel

• tunnelsyn
• vindtunnel

Borrowed from English tunnel, from Middle French tonnelle.

• IPA^(key): /ˈtʏ.nəl/

• Audio

  (file)

• Hyphenation: tun‧nel

tunnel m (plural tunnels, diminutive tunneltje n)

1. tunnel

English tunnel, itself a borrowing from French tonnelle; hence a reborrowing. Doublet of tonnelle.

• IPA^(key): /ty.nɛl/

• audio

  (file)

tunnel m (plural tunnels)

1. tunnel

• voir le bout du tunnel

• Haitian Creole: tinèl
• → Armenian: թիւնէլ (tʻiwnēl)
• → Ottoman Turkish: تونل (tünel), طونل (tünel)
  • Turkish: tünel
• → Romanian: tunel

• “tunnel”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

English tunnel.

• IPA^(key): /ˈtun.nel/
• Rhymes: -unnel
• Hyphenation: tùn‧nel

• Audio

  (file)

tunnel m (invariable)

1. tunnel

   Synonyms: galleria, traforo

• tunell

• Audio

  (file)

tunnel m (definite singular tunnelen, indefinite plural tunneler, definite plural tunnelene)

1. a tunnel
2. (soccer) nutmeg

• “tunnel” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

• lunnet, lunten

• tunell

From English tunnel, Middle French tonnelle (“net”) or tonel (“cask”), diminutive of Old French tonne (“cask”), a word of uncertain origin and affiliation.

• IPA^(key): /tʉˈnɛlː/, /²tʉnːɛl/

tunnel m (definite singular tunnelen, indefinite plural tunnelar, definite plural tunnelane)

1. a tunnel

   Synonyms: holgang, holveg, jordgang

2. (soccer) nutmeg

• “tunnel” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

From English tunnel, from Middle French tonnelle (“net”).

• IPA^(key): /²tɵnɛl/

• Audio (tunnlar)

  (file)

tunnel c

1. tunnel
   1. An underground or underwater passage.
   2. A passage through or under some obstacle.
   3. A hole in the ground made by an animal, a burrow.

• biltunnel
• järnvägstunnel (“railway tunnel”)
• tunneleffekt
• tunnelseende
• tunnla (“to tunnel”)
• tunnling
• vindtunnel (“wind tunnel”)

• tunnel in Svensk ordbok.