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Cloaca
//kləʊˈeɪ.kə// noun
Definitions
Noun
- 1 A sewer. figuratively, sometimes
"The Thames, polluted with the filthy effusions of the cloacae."
- 2 a waste pipe that carries away sewage or surface water wordnet
- 3 The opening in reptiles, amphibians and birds, as well as elasmobranchians, lobe-finned fishes, and monotreme mammals, which serves as the common outlet for the urogenital ducts and rectum.
"In birds the rectum, at the termination of its canal, forms an oval or elongated pouch […] and then expands into a cavity, which has been named cloaca."
- 4 (zoology) the cavity (in birds, reptiles, amphibians, most fish, and monotremes but not other mammals) at the end of the digestive tract into which the intestinal, genital, and urinary tracts open wordnet
- 5 An outhouse or lavatory.
"To every house […] a cloaca."
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- 6 A duct through which gangrenous material escapes a body.
"Across this shell [sc. of bone] small holes are eaten, by which the matter escapes, and which are called cloacae (Weidmann)."
- 7 Structure in the embryo during the development of the reproductive and urinary systems.
Etymology
Borrowed from Latin cloāca (“sewer”), related to cluō (“cleanse; purge”), but the derivation is uncertain.
See also for "cloaca"
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Unscramble this word: cloaca