Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A covered hole or pit for receiving drainage or sewage, as from a house.
  • noun A filthy, disgusting, or morally corrupt place.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A sunk chamber, cistern, or well in a drain or privy, to receive the sediment or filth.
  • noun Figuratively, any foul or fetid receptacle.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A cistern in the course, or the termination, of a drain, to collect sedimentary or superfluous matter; a privy vault; any receptacle of filth.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun An underground pit where sewage is held.
  • noun by extension A filthy place.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a covered cistern; waste water and sewage flow into it

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Perhaps alteration (influenced by pool) of obsolete cesperalle, drainpipe, from Middle English suspiral, vent, from Old French sospirail, breathing hole, from souspirer, to breathe, from Latin suspīrāre, to sigh; see suspire.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

By folk etymology (influence from pool) from earlier cesperalle, alteration of Middle English suspiral, from Middle French souspirail ("air hole"), from soupirer, souspirer ("to sigh, breathe"), from Latin suspirare.

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