ˈfox-hole
[See hole n. 1 b; the compound fox(e)hole (OE. fox-hol) appears in early local designations, e.g. in Domesday Book, and persists in place-names.]
A hole in the ground used by a soldier for protection; a slit trench. Also transf. and fig.; also used attrib., as foxhole circuit (see quot. 19462).
| 1919 Red Cross Mag. Apr. 29/1 The bitter weeks of the Argonne when the same Yank lay hungry, cold, wet, and exhausted in some insufficient fox-hole. 1928 Blunden Undertones of War xii. 143 Those dead men in field grey overcoats at the entrances, and others flung down by their last ‘foxholes’ near by. 1942 Hutchinson's Pict. Hist. of War 18 Mar.–9 June 130 Slit trenches used for protection by troops were called ‘fox-holes’ by American soldiers fighting against the Japanese on Bataan peninsula. 1944 Newsweek 31 July 60 The performers who were selected to make up the first entertainment..wave, as part of USO-Camp Show's ‘Foxhole Circuit’. 1946 W. V. Thomas in Hawkins & Boyd War Report xviii. 351 Fox⁓holes with the Germans manning bazookas. 1946 Amer. Speech XXI. 223/1 Foxhole circuit, a theater circuit at the fighting fronts played by American troupes. 1955 Sci. News Let. 19 Feb. 116/1 Simple foxhole shelters provide ‘surprising protection’ from this invisible radioactivity. 1957 Economist 28 Sept. 1003/2 The arrangement..might get trade flowing without abandoning the principle of reunion through elections, and yet it might conceivably inveigle the communists out of their foxholes. 1964 D. F. Dowd in I. L. Horowitz New Sociol. 59 The academic profession in America is the social critic's refuge; even, in extreme cases, his foxhole. 1968 Times 4 Apr. 8/6 The pound is in the same foxhole as the dollar. |