DREDGE

I. verb (~d; dredging) Date: 1508 transitive verb 1. to dig, gather, or pull out with or as if with a ~, to deepen (as a waterway) with a dredging machine, to bring to light by deep searching, intransitive verb to use a ~, to search deeply, ~r noun II. noun Etymology: perhaps from Old English *drecge; akin to Old English dræge dragnet, dragan to draw Date: 1602 an apparatus usually in the form of an oblong iron frame with an attached bag net used especially for gathering fish and shellfish, a machine for removing earth usually by buckets on an endless chain or a suction tube, a barge used in dredging, III. transitive verb (~d; dredging) Etymology: obsolete ~, noun, sweetmeat, from Middle English drage, drege, from Anglo-French dragee, modification of Latin tragemata sweetmeats, from Greek tragēmata, plural of tragēma sweetmeat, from trōgein to gnaw Date: 1596 to coat (food) by sprinkling (as with flour), ~r noun