trawl

Word family

trawl1 /trɔːl $ trɒːl/ verb [intransitiveI, transitiveT]

1 LOOK FORto search through a lot of documents, lists etc in order to find out information 〔在大量文件、名单等中〕搜寻（资料）

trawl through

I’ll have to trawl through all my lecture notes again.

我必须把所有课堂笔记再翻一遍。

trawl for

She spent the morning in the library, trawling for information for her project.

她一上午都在图书馆，查阅项目所需的资料。

2. TAto fish by pulling a special wide net behind a boat 用拖网捕（鱼）

Examples from the Corpus

trawl• I trawled a few opinions at dinner with friends the other night and nothing much was forthcoming.• Noses trawl along the formica sideboards hoovering up powder.• Shrimp boats can trawl continuously for hours at a time.• He trawls for advice and information from dozens of people, who find themselves invited to Kensington Palace quite out of the blue.• As the Rattlesnake beat across the seas, Huxley trawled for specimens of sea creatures using an improvised net.• Important loans have been trawled from all the major international collections.• Are we herrings to be trawled in long nets by Saint Peter?• Mark's eyes trawl the room.• Have you been trawling the sales and picking up every urn and tub that caught your fancy?

trawl through• Haley trawled through public records to piece together his family's history.• The FBI should have taken another trawl through their files.

trawl2 noun [countableC]

1. LOOK FORan act of searching through a lot of documents, lists etc in order to find something 〔在大量文件、名单等中的〕搜寻

2. TA (also trawl net) a wide net that is pulled along the bottom of the sea to catch fish 拖网

Examples from the Corpus

trawl• After a trawl through its shortlist, a further three prospective sites were added to the already chosen Elstow.• And as Mike Rowbottom reports, it seems that a trawl around the attic can turn out to be very profitable.• A trawl I made through three small-ad market place papers yielded around four pages of diesel cars per 300-400 page issue.• Officers worked with the yachting, boating and fishing communities in a constant trawl for information.• Among this lot, the emotional trawl was a bit more of a mixed bag.• Crinoids are brought up in trawls from the deep sea several thousand at a time.• And the trawl for tax dodgers also threw up other misdemeanours.• Did I look like a hooker on the trawl?

Origin trawl1

(1500-1600) Middle Dutch tragelen, from tragel “net pulled along behind”, probably from Latin tragula; → TRAIL1

trawl1 verbtrawl2 noun

Chinese

Corpus