TRENCHER • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Trencher

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/trˈɛntʃər/ Listen

noun

Trencher n.

One who trenches; esp., one who cuts or digs ditches.

A large wooden plate or platter, as for table use.

The table; hence, the pleasures of the table; food. "It could be no ordinary declension of nature that could bring some men, after an ingenuous education, to place their "summum bonum" upon their trenchers."

Trencher cap, the cap worn by studens at Oxford and Cambridge Universities, having a stiff, flat, square appendage at top. A similar cap used in the United States is called Oxford cap, mortar board, etc.

Trencher fly, a person who haunts the tables of others; a parasite. (R.)

Trencher friend, one who frequents the tables of others; a sponger.

Trencher mate, a table companion; a parasite; a trencher fly.

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Etymology of 'Trencher'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Trencher" Quotes from Famous Books

... and horn cups, surrounding a barley loaf and a cheese, this meagre irregular supper being considered as a sufficient supplement to the funeral baked meats which had abounded at Beaulieu. John Birkenholt sat at the table with a trencher and horn before him, uneasily using his knife to crumble, rather than cut, his bread. His wife, a thin, pale, shrewish-looking woman, was warming her child's feet at the fire, before putting him to bed, and an old woman sat spinning ...

— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge

... cup: but for the better certainty, the Mistriss commands her to draw some Wine in a glass that was very clean rinsed; which she no sooner brought back, but the Mistriss observed that greasy lips had been at it; yet before she sent her the second time, she takes a trencher and holds it over the smoke of a Candle to grow black, then with her finger rubs that soot upon the edge or hollow part of the glass; and commanded her, as she did before, to draw some Wine; but when she came back again, the Mistriss then perceived that the round circle of the glass was ...

— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh

... true Arabian Nights fashion they mounted and rode away. They came to a new house called Hoarstones, where there were three score or more people, and horses of several colors, and a fire with meat roasting. They had flesh and bread upon a trencher and they drank from glasses. After the first taste the boy "refused and would have noe more, and said it was nought." There were other refreshments at the feast. The boy was, as he afterwards confessed, familiar with the story of the feast at ...

— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein

... Eustace, in a trance?" said d'Aubricour. "Waken, and carry this trencher of beef to your brother. Best that you should do it," he added in a low voice, taking up a flask of wine, "and save our comrade from at once making himself ...

— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge

... The groaning trencher there ye fill, Your hurdies like a distant hill; [buttocks] Your pin wad help to mend a mill [skewer] In time o' need; While thro' your pores the ...

— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson

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