Culvert
noun, verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A channel crossing under a road or railway for the draining of water.
"A raft of twigs stayed upon a stone, suddenly detached itself, and floated towards the culvert."
- 2 a transverse and totally enclosed drain under a road or railway wordnet
- 1 To channel (a stream of water) through a culvert. intransitive, transitive
"This led to a great deal of straightening and culverting, which in turn led to a massive loss of biodiversity."
Example
More examples"The culvert empties out behind my house."
Etymology
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”).
Related phrases
More for "culvert"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.