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🚨 Criminal search 🎣 A fishing net
dragnet

dragnet

7.5
A large cone shaped net fishermen drag through the water to catch fish
  • noun
  • /ˈdræɡnɛt/
  • Specialized
translation icon : red de arrastre
  • A dragnet is often deployed in fishing to ensure that no fish escape.

Examples

  • When the boat returned, it was full of fish caught in the dragnet.

  • Thus, a critical epistemology requires some working conception of the truth and facts in order to determine what is bad about what she calls the Dragnet theory of knowledge (205), while not falling victim to a false battle about whose "version" of truth is to prevail.

    Academic text (2001)

  • The fishermen used a dragnet to catch a large number of fish from the deep sea.

Synonyms

fishing net
vsdragnet
5 1.4

A net people pull through water to catch fish

is more specific, describing a large cone net dragged at great depths
trawl
vsdragnet
  • Specialized
2 5.1

A large net or line with hooks that fishermen drag through water to catch fish

is narrower, focusing on a cone net used at great depths
trawl net
vsdragnet
  • Specialized
4.9

A large cone-shaped net pulled along the sea bottom or through deep water to catch fish

is similar but stresses use at especially great depths

How Deep

dragnet
  • Specialized
7.5
to trawl
  • Specialized
1 5.3
to seine
  • Specialized
9.2
drift net
  • Specialized
3 5.1

Surface Forms

dragnet singular
dragnets plural

Morphology

dragnet = drag + net (transparent) = drag + net

A literal compound: a net that is dragged through the water; the meaning follows directly from the components.

Etymology

The word dragnet for a large fishing net is simply drag ('to pull') and net, meaning a net that is pulled through the water to 'catch' many fish.