Meaning

noun a long fishing line with many shorter lines and hooks attached to it (usually suspended between buoys)

noun a conical fishnet dragged through the water at great depths

verb fish with trawlers

origin16th century, borrowed from Dutch tragelen (“to pull with a towline, trawl”), from Middle Dutch traghelen, from traghel (“dragnet”) (presumably from Latin tragula (“dragnet”)), and as such root-cognate with English drag and dray.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0