trench warfare

/trɛntʃ ˌwɔrˈfɛər/

During World War I, a common method of fighting was trench warfare, when soldiers took shelter in long ditches as they fired at enemy troops.

In trench warfare, armed battles were fought from a network of trenches dug in the ground. Fairly well protected by these channels, which were often deep enough to stand in, soldiers fired at enemy troops who were ensconced in their own trenches. This type of combat declined after the First World War, when armored warfare (using heavy tanks and powerful artillery) became more common. Trench warfare then came to have the figurative meaning of "stalemate."

Definitions of trench warfare

1. noun

   a type of armed combat in which the opposing troops fight from trenches that face each other
   “instead of the war ending quickly, it became bogged down in trench warfare”

   type of:

   armed combat, combat

   an engagement fought between two military forces
2. noun

   a struggle (usually prolonged) between competing entities in which neither side is able to win
   “the hope that his superior campaigning skills would make a difference evaporated in the realization that electioneering had become a form of trench warfare”

   type of:

   war, warfare

   an active struggle between competing entities