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Definitions

tunnel

[tuhn-l] / ˈtʌn l /


VERB
dig a passage through
Synonyms
Antonyms


Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

Their grandmother, Rae, escaped from a Jewish ghetto in what was then the Polish city of Novogrudok by clawing her way through a tunnel.

From The Wall Street Journal Aug. 15, 2026

Then, the wind tunnel was not ready to receive any modelling until mid-April, so now they were nearly four months behind the others.

From BBC Aug. 4, 2026

In December 1910 the Newhall tunnel opened wide — well, about as wide as Beale’s Cut a few hundred yards away.

From Los Angeles Times Aug. 1, 2026

The facility appears to have four tunnel entrances, two on the eastern side and two on the western end.

From BBC Aug. 1, 2026

The elevator doors open into a small tunnel with a ladder going up the wall.

From "The Manifestor Prophecy" by Angie Thomas

Local firefighters aided by colleagues deployed from the capital, Bogotá, and the disaster response team of the national police force had to dig two tunnels to reach her.

From BBC Aug. 12, 2026

It will also administer and implement a process to decommission and store heavy weapons, military production sites, depots of weapons, and tunnels.

From Los Angeles Times Jul. 31, 2026

Hamas is also expected to hand over maps of its tunnels, weapons factories and depots, according to the draft of the agreement.

From The Wall Street Journal Jul. 31, 2026

The roadmap lays out a process to decommission and store Hamas's heavy weapons, military production sites, weapons depots and tunnels, to be implemented by NCAG.

From Barron's Jul. 31, 2026

The three tunnels look the same—made of stone and lit by candles with no end in sight.

From "The Manifestor Prophecy" by Angie Thomas

His best work tunneled into life’s darkest spaces to excavate ideas about our fears and obsessions, often reflected through dazzling practical effects that matched the naturalism of his greatest feature: a singularly expressive, malleable face.

From Salon Jul. 17, 2026

“At these depths, there would not be noise and vibration,” Sheridan said, noting that Metro had tunneled in similar soil conditions at similar depths without settlement problems.

From Los Angeles Times Mar. 24, 2026

In 2021, using lidar technology, Estrada-Belli found evidence that looters had tunneled inside a seemingly royal pyramid within the city’s monumental core.

From National Geographic Jan. 26, 2024

Voilà, your water wave has tunneled through a wall!

From Scientific American Oct. 12, 2023

Then, with closed eyes, he moved his head and tunneled under the pillow with me.

From "Middlesex: A Novel" by Jeffrey Eugenides

Hampshire & Isle of Wight Fire & Rescue Service said crews tunnelled through the debris to get to the two people inside the car and stabilise the vehicle.

From BBC Oct. 17, 2021

According to the report, the six were cell mates and tunnelled out of Gilboa prison in northern Israel, where security forces launched a search.

From Reuters Sep. 6, 2021

The suspected mastermind of France’s “heist of the century” has gone on trial more than 40 years after robbers tunnelled through sewers to snatch the equivalent of €29m from a bank vault.

From The Guardian Feb. 12, 2018

During the construction of the dam, they tunnelled into the rock at the base of the slide and drilled hundreds of drainage holes upward into the plane of failure.

From Textbooks Jan. 1, 2015

Here Odysseus tunnelled, and raked together with his hands a wide bed—for a fall of leaves was there, enough to save two men or maybe three on a winter night, a night of bitter cold.

From "The Odyssey" by Homer

Elon Musk’s tunneling startup, the Boring Company, is in talks to raise new funding that would value it at around $20 billion, according to people familiar with the discussions.

From The Wall Street Journal Jul. 25, 2026

The team also examined how neighboring edge states interact, finding that their energy levels shift because of a combination of electrostatic interactions and quantum tunneling.

From Science Daily Jul. 11, 2026

According to the researchers, satellite glial cells appear to pass healthy mitochondria directly into sensory neurons through tiny structures known as tunneling nanotubes.

From Science Daily May 24, 2026

With Traylor, they were brothers and they were doing the tunneling.

From Los Angeles Times May 1, 2026

It is the strongest of dwarf urges, a genetic memory born from millennia spent tunneling.

From "Artemis Fowl" by Eoin Colfer

Cowi's tunnelling timeline has three years for preliminary work and five years for construction.

From BBC Jun. 29, 2026

However, in her Budget in October the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, committed to the funding required to begin tunnelling work to Euston.

From BBC Jan. 27, 2026

Their work demonstrated that tunnelling can happen not only in a more theoretical world, but also in electrical circuits in the 'real world'.

From BBC Oct. 7, 2025

Their work demonstrated that tunnelling can be reproduced not only in the quantum world, but also in electrical circuits in the 'real world'.

From BBC Oct. 7, 2025

Soft, soft, but how piercing! boring and drilling into reason, tunnelling through resolution.

From "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley




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