Definitions

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

  • noun A sewer or drain crossing under a road or embankment.
  • noun The part of a road or embankment that passes over such a sewer or drain.
  • noun The channel or conduit for such a sewer or drain.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An arched or flat-covered drain of brickwork or masonry carried under a road, railroad, canal, etc., for the passage of water.
  • False; villainous.

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

  • noun A transverse drain or waterway of masonry under a road, railroad, canal, etc.; a small bridge.

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

  • noun A transverse channel under a road or railway for the draining of water.

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

  • noun a transverse and totally enclosed drain under a road or railway

Etymologies

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

[Origin unknown.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Obscure, possibly dialect or related to the name of the long-forgotten inventor, or possibly from French couvert ("covered"), although couvert cannot be used in the same way, and the introduction of an l to make the English word is difficult to explain.

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