trawl

There are many words, ancient in origin, whose history is not easily traced. Trawl, which serves as a verb and a noun, is a good example.

To trawl means to fish in the deep sea with a large net, one that flows and can capture many fish at a time. A trawl is the name of the net which is derived from the action of trawling to catch fish.

Because mankind has been fishing across the world from the earliest of times, the word could have arisen from Latin, tragula, possibly Old English trahere  or Middle Dutch tragel

These days, we are more likely to ‘trawl the internet’ for information than take to the sea to fish for our family or community dinner!