Wiktionary
n. (context military English) A short shovel, usually with collapsible handle, used by soldiers for digging entrenchments, foxholes etc.
WordNet
n. a hand shovel carried by infantrymen for digging trenches [syn: trenching spade]
Wikipedia
An entrenching tool, E-tool, or trenching tool is a collapsible spade used by military forces for a variety of military purposes. Survivalists, campers, hikers and other outdoors groups have found it to be indispensable in field use. Modern entrenching tools are usually collapsible and made using steel, aluminum, or other light metals.
Usage examples of "entrenching tool".
I eyed the entrenching tool lying close beside me, and swore under my breath.
A shot of my platoon on a night patrol, slogging through a blackness so deep that each man must hold onto the handle of the entrenching tool on the back of the man in front of him.
Reggie snatched up the entrenching tool beside him and threw it at the rat.
Then she pulled out a bundle of stakes with a steel blade on either end swine-feathers, to be driven into the trench outside the earthwork and took her entrenching tool to the perimeter.
He reached to the back of his webbing belt and undid the leather pouch that held the head of his entrenching tool.
The Unionaise soldier dropped the ammunition belt and snatched up an entrenching tool stuck into the soft earth of the trench side and began a chopping stroke that would have buried it in the newcomers head.
He flopped down in the sweet-smelling dirt, scraped out a bare minimum of a foxhole with his entrenching tool, and started firing short bursts from his tommy gun toward the racket from the Lizards' automatics.
He was still stomach down, his German entrenching tool only half extended, lifting up shovelfuls of dirt and carefully placing them on a tarp.
He flopped down in the sweet-smelling dirt, scraped out a bare minimum of a foxhole with his entrenching tool, and started firing short bursts from his tommy gun toward the racket from the Lizards’.
Boggs gave Verduin's marker a final whack, folded his entrenching tool, and tossed it on the ground.
Franklin used the entrenching tool he carried to dig a hole for his chute and harness.
Mutt hunkered down and dug himself into the ground with his entrenching tool.