tunnel
noun
tun·nel
| \ ˈtə-nᵊl
\
\
Definition of tunnel
(Entry 1 of 2)
tunnel
verb
tunneled
or tunnelled;
tunneling
or tunnelling\ ˈtən-liŋ
, ˈtə-nᵊl-iŋ \
, ˈtə-nᵊl-iŋ \
Definition of tunnel (Entry 2 of 2)
1
: to make or use a tunnel
2
physics
: to pass through a potential barrier
electrons tunneling through an insulator between semiconductors
: to make a tunnel or similar opening through or under
also
: to make (one's way) by or as if by making a tunnel
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Other Words from tunnel
Noun
tunnellike
\ ˈtə-nᵊl-ˌ(l)īk
\
adjective
\
adjective
Verb
tunneler
\ ˈtən-lər
, ˈtə-nᵊl-ər \
noun
, ˈtə-nᵊl-ər \
noun
Examples of tunnel in a Sentence
Noun
The train goes through a tunnel in the mountain. The moles dug tunnels in the yard.Verb
Workers are tunneling through the hill. Insects had tunneled into the tree.
Recent Examples on the Web: Noun
Beneath Montreal lays a subterranean mall, subway and tunnel system that’s like something from a dream. — Brent Schrotenboer, USA TODAY, "First time in Montreal? Here are 5 things you should do," 21 Aug. 2019 The remains of the road lay across the street from the City of David, directly underneath dozens of Palestinian homes, so Elad, in coordination with the I.A.A., had received approval for a tunnel excavation. — Rachel Poser, Harper's magazine, "Common Ground," 19 Aug. 2019 Lil'Jordan Humphrey caught a tunnel screen near the line of scrimmage. — SI.com, "Sam Ehlinger Was Born to Lead Texas's Return to Prominence," 14 Aug. 2019 Caltrans uses a scrub truck to soften the sticky dust on the tunnel wall followed by truck tanker to pressure wash the walls. — Gary Richards, The Mercury News, "Paving all of Interstate 680 will be done in stages: Roadshow," 14 Aug. 2019 From the street, the Isaacses’ home looks like a green lawn with skylights poking out of the grass, and a subway-like tunnel slanting downhill. — Devin Kelly, Anchorage Daily News, "Inside the quirky underground house that lies beneath lawn skylights in Anchorage," 11 Aug. 2019 From mid- to late August, San Francisco Muni will close subway tunnels from 9:30 p.m. to 1 a.m., replacing that service with shuttle buses. — Julia Wick, Los Angeles Times, "Newsletter: 8chan and the future of the darkest corners of the internet," 6 Aug. 2019 On Sunday the temperature reached 100 degrees Fahrenheit, but the festival included a considerable number of industrial-size fans, tents, awnings and mist tunnels to keep the crowd from overheating. — Miguel Garcia Jr., Billboard, "Hard Summer 2019 Brought the Heat With High Temps and Hot Sets From Kid Cudi, Major Lazer & More," 5 Aug. 2019 In the city of Pilsen, an hour’s drive southwest of Prague, visitors can navigate restored tunnel sections that were used to store food, as water wells, and as secret, subterranean fortification in the Middle Ages. — Meghan Miner Murray, National Geographic, "9 of Europe’s underground marvels," 2 Aug. 2019Recent Examples on the Web: Verb
But the challenge of tunneling through these barriers increases as the roadblocks get taller, making it so that fewer particles can break through. — Rachel Crowell, Scientific American, "Quirky Quantum Tunneling Observed," 9 July 2019 Carpenter ants build their nests by tunneling in wet and rotting wood, and generally do not go into healthy wood. — Tim Johnson, chicagotribune.com, "Carpenter ants build nests in wet, rotting wood," 3 July 2019 There and in bouncing-droplet labs that soon sprang up at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and elsewhere, droplets were seen to tunnel through barriers and perform other acts previously thought to be uniquely quantum. — Quanta Magazine, "Famous Experiment Dooms Alternative to Quantum Weirdness," 11 Oct. 2018 El Chapo’’ Guzman has been sentenced to life behind bars in a U.S. prison, a humbling end for a drug lord notorious for his ability to kill, bribe or tunnel his way out of trouble. — Tom Hays, BostonGlobe.com, "Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman sentenced to life in prison," 17 July 2019 If the setup is just right — and if the universe cooperates — some of those particles will transform into mirror-image versions of themselves, allowing them to tunnel right through the wall. — NBC News, "Scientists are searching for a mirror universe. It could be sitting right in front of you.," 30 June 2019 Beneath the surface of the glaciers, engineers hoped to tunnel out a series of railways that would eventually cover an area as large as the state of Alabama. — Colin Dickey, The New Republic, "The Secrets in Greenland’s Ice," 11 July 2019 So for a fence to work, hardware cloth needs to extend down least 2 feet down — the limit the squirrels are willing to tunnel — and the openings in the fence need to be small enough to prevent them pushing through. — Joan Morris, The Mercury News, "Pleasant Hill battleground: humans vs. ground squirrels," 8 July 2019 If so, the ball will eventually tunnel to the lower, more stable valley, corresponding to a drop in the energy of the Higgs field. — Quanta Magazine, "The Physics Still Hiding in the Higgs Boson," 4 Mar. 2019These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'tunnel.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
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More Definitions for tunnel
tunnel
noun
English Language Learners Definition of tunnel
(Entry 1 of 2)
: a passage that goes under the ground, through a hill, etc.
tunnel
verbEnglish Language Learners Definition of tunnel (Entry 2 of 2)
: to make a tunnel
See the full definition for tunnel in the English Language Learners Dictionary
tunnel
noun
tun·nel
| \ ˈtə-nᵊl
\
\
Kids Definition of tunnel
(Entry 1 of 2)
: a passage under the ground
tunnel
verb
tunneled
or tunnelled;
tunneling
or tunnelling
Kids Definition of tunnel (Entry 2 of 2)
: to make a passage under the ground