culvert

CEFRC1

/ˈkʌlvə(ɹ)t/

noun

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    noun

    A pipe or channel carrying water under a road or path.

  2. 02

    noun

    Extra detail

    To channel (a stream of water) through a culvert.

Examples

  • The culvert empties out behind my house.

  • We installed a new culvert to improve drainage.

At a glance

Sits at C1 on the CEFR scale

Senses
3
Parts of speech
1
Citations
4

Deep Dive

noun

Extra meaning

  1. A channel crossing under a road or railway for the draining of water.

More examples

In context

  • A raft of twigs stayed upon a stone, suddenly detached itself, and floated towards the culvert.

  • After she left, I ran away for a day, and hid myself, solitary, in a culvert under the railway lines.

  • This led to a great deal of straightening and culverting, which in turn led to a massive loss of biodiversity.

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

The road workers installed a new blank to channel rainwater under the highway.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

noun

Origin obscure, with a number of possible etymologies suggested: * a dialectal word, * a word related to the name of the now-forgotten inventor, * a derivation from French couvert (“covered”), although couvert is not used in this sense and the French translation of culvert is ponceau or buse de drainage, * a derivation from an unrecorded Dutch word, possibly *coul-vaart, a combination of Dutch coul-, from French couler (“to flow”), and Dutch vaart (“a trip by boat, a canal”).