From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishtrawltrawl1 /trɔːl $ trɒːl/ verb [intransitive, transitive] 1 LOOK FORto search through a lot of documents, lists etc in order to find out informationtrawl through I’ll have to trawl through all my lecture notes again.trawl for She spent the morning in the library, trawling for information for her project.2 TAto fish by pulling a special wide net behind a boat→ See Verb table
Examples from the Corpus
trawl• I trawled a few opinions at dinner with friends the other night and nothing much was forthcoming.• Noses trawl along the formica sideboards hoovering up powder.• Shrimp boats can trawl continuously for hours at a time.• He trawls for advice and information from dozens of people, who find themselves invited to Kensington Palace quite out of the blue.• As the Rattlesnake beat across the seas, Huxley trawled for specimens of sea creatures using an improvised net.• Important loans have been trawled from all the major international collections.• Are we herrings to be trawled in long nets by Saint Peter?• Mark's eyes trawl the room.• Have you been trawling the sales and picking up every urn and tub that caught your fancy?trawl through• Haley trawled through public records to piece together his family's history.• The FBI should have taken another trawl through their files.trawltrawl2 noun [countable] 1 LOOK FORan act of searching through a lot of documents, lists etc in order to find something2 TA (also trawl net) a wide net that is pulled along the bottom of the sea to catch fishExamples from the Corpus
trawl• After a trawl through its shortlist, a further three prospective sites were added to the already chosen Elstow.• And as Mike Rowbottom reports, it seems that a trawl around the attic can turn out to be very profitable.• A trawl I made through three small-ad market place papers yielded around four pages of diesel cars per 300-400 page issue.• Officers worked with the yachting, boating and fishing communities in a constant trawl for information.• Among this lot, the emotional trawl was a bit more of a mixed bag.• Crinoids are brought up in trawls from the deep sea several thousand at a time.• And the trawl for tax dodgers also threw up other misdemeanours.• Did I look like a hooker on the trawl?Origin trawl1 (1500-1600) Middle Dutch tragelen, from tragel “net pulled along behind”, probably from Latin tragula; → TRAIL1 