☼ Concept Map

''tranche'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260829000755-00-⌔

tranche - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

tranche (plural tranches)

  • A slice, section or portion.
    • ✤ Servants, carrying huge baskets suspended before them in which were huge tranches of bread, speedily distributed the contents; and they were followed by others bearing huge cans of milk, hot and cold.1
    • ✤ Habeck said he was planning to announce a first tranche of climate protection measures by Easter, and a second by the end of the summer, to come into force by 2023.2
    • ✤ The files took all day to upload, since the connection often dropped. […] Then, half an hour before the bookstore closed, the final tranche went through.3
    • ✤ Then, in January this year, the US justice department released a tranche of Epstein emails.4
  • (insurance) A distinct subdivision of a single policyholder’s benefits, typically relating to separate premium increments.
  • (pensions) A pension scheme’s or scheme member’s benefits relating to distinct accrual periods with different rules.
  • (finance) One of a set of classes or risk maturities that compose a multiple-class security, such as a CMO or REMIC; a class of bonds. Collateralized mortgage obligations are structured with several tranches of bonds that have various maturities.

Verb

tranche (third-person singular simple present tranches, present participle tranching, simple past and past participle tranched)

  • (finance, transitive) To divide into tranches.

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from French tranche, form of trancher (“to cut, to slice”), from Old French trenchier (“cut, make a cut”), possibly from Vulgar Latin ﹡trinicāre (“cut in three parts”). Doublet of traunch and trench.

Pronunciation

  • (US) IPA: /tɹɑ̃ʃ/, /tɹɑ̃nʃ/, /tɹɑ̃nt͡ʃ/, /tɹænt͡ʃ/
  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /tɹɑ̃ʃ/, /tɹɑːnʃ/, /tɹɑːnt͡ʃ/
  • (Australia) IPA: /tɹæːnt͡ʃ/
  • Audio (Southern England);/tɹɑːnʃ/: 🔊
  • Rhymes: -ɑ̃ʃ, -ɑ̃nʃ, -ɑ̃ntʃ, -ɑːntʃ, -æntʃ, -ɑːnʃ

Printed 2026-08-29.

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Footnotes

  1. 1893, P. Fitzgerald, “Stonyhurst Memories”, in The Month: An Illustrated Magazine of Literature, Science and Art, pages 336–337: ↩

  2. 2022 January 11, Kate Connolly, “German climate minister says speed of carbon cuts needs to be trebled”, in The Guardian ‎: ↩

  3. 2022 October 27, Simon Parkin, “README.txt by Chelsea Manning review – secrets and spies”, in The Guardian ‎, →ISSN: ↩

  4. 2026 June 13, Sophie McBain, “‘Have you ever been around someone you just know is evil?’ Melinda French Gates on meeting Jeffrey Epstein, giving away billions, and her post-divorce peace”, in The Guardian ‎, →ISSN: ↩