tunnel

Meanings

Plural: tunnels

Noun

• a passageway through or under something, usually underground (especially one for trains or cars)
  • "the tunnel reduced congestion at that intersection"
• a hole made by an animal, usually for shelter
• An underground or underwater passage.
• A passage through or under some obstacle.
• A hole in the ground made by an animal, a burrow.
• A wrapper for a protocol that cannot otherwise be used because it is unsupported, blocked, or insecure.
• 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.
• The opening of a chimney for the passage of smoke; a flue.
• 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.
• Anything that resembles a tunnel.

Verb

• move through by or as by digging
• force a way through
• To make a tunnel through or under something; to burrow.
• To dig a tunnel.
• To transmit something through a tunnel (wrapper for an insecure or unsupported protocol).
• To insert a catheter into a vein to allow long-term use.
• To undergo the quantum-mechanical phenomenon where a particle penetrates through a barrier that it classically cannot surmount.

Synonyms

burrow, undermine