retrench

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
retrench/rɪˈtrentʃ/

▶verb

• 1 reduce costs or spending in response to economic difficulty.

  ■ Austral. & S. African make (an employee) redundant.

• 2 formal reduce in extent or quantity.

– derivatives
retrenchment noun.

– origin C16: from obs. Fr. retrencher, var. of retrancher, from re- (expressing reversal) + trancher ‘to cut, slice’.