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Adit vs Tunnel - What's the difference?

adit | tunnel |

As nouns the difference between adit and tunnel

is that adit is a horizontal or nearly horizontal passage from the surface into a mine as contrasted to a shaft which is a vertical entry passage. An adit may be used for ventilation, haulage, drainage, or other purposes while tunnel is an underground or underwater passage.

As a verb tunnel is

to make a tunnel through or under something, to burrow.

adit

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • A horizontal or nearly horizontal passage from the surface into a mine as contrasted to a shaft which is a vertical entry passage. An adit may be used for ventilation, haulage, drainage, or other purposes.
  • * 2006 , Mike Hetman, IronMiners.com [http://www.ironminers.com/ironmines/old-mine-1.htm]:
  • The Old Mine is currently entered through an upper adit as the main is no longer accessible.
  • * 2008 , Iain M. Banks, Matter , page 445:
  • The adit sloped downwards into the bowels of some long-fallen building, following a passage that had silted up when the city had first been buried.

    References

    * ----

    tunnel

    English

    (wikipedia tunnel)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • An underground or underwater passage.
  • A passage through or under some obstacle.
  • * 1922 , (Margery Williams), (The Velveteen Rabbit)
  • But very soon he grew to like it, for the Boy used to talk to him, and made nice tunnels for him under the bedclothes that he said were like the burrows the real rabbits lived in.
  • A hole in the ground made by an animal, a burrow.
  • (computing, networking) A wrapper for a protocol that cannot otherwise be used because it is unsupported, blocked, or insecure.
  • A vessel with a broad mouth at one end, a pipe or tube at the other, for conveying liquor, fluids, etc., into casks, bottles, or other vessels; a funnel.
  • The opening of a chimney for the passage of smoke; a flue.
  • * Spenser
  • And one great chimney, whose long tunnel thence / The smoke forth threw.
  • (mining) A level passage driven across the measures, or at right angles to veins which it is desired to reach; distinguished from the drift'', or ''gangway , which is led along the vein when reached by the tunnel.
  • Verb

  • To make a tunnel through or under something, to burrow.
  • To make a tunnel.