BharatNotes Entrench
verb (transitive and intransitive)Usage in a UPSC answer
The persistence of caste-based discrimination in rural public service delivery illustrates how deeply entrenched social hierarchies can subvert formal legal guarantees of equality, rendering constitutional provisions nominally operative but substantively hollow in practice.
Synonyms
Antonyms
Word Family
entrenched (adj), entrenchment (noun), trench (noun/verb), intrench (archaic variant), retrench (verb)
Root
English en- = put into; trench = a deep ditch dug for defence (from Old French trenche, from trenchier = to cut)
Etymology
From en- (causative prefix, 'put into') + trench, from Old French trenchier 'to cut', from Vulgar Latin *trincare. A trench in military usage was a deep defensive ditch into which troops settled for protection — to 'entrench' meant to dig in and become hard to dislodge. The figurative sense of 'to establish firmly' is attested from the 17th century.
Memory Hook
EN-TRENCH: to dig a TRENCH around something so it cannot be moved. Soldiers ENTRENCH themselves in trenches for protection — an entrenched practice or privilege is dug in like a troop in a defensive trench, resistant to all frontal assaults of reform.
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