sewer
/ˈsuɚ/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.64 in modern English
8
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
2
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A pipe or channel, or system of pipes or channels, used to remove human waste and to provide drainage.
noun
An official in charge of a princely household, also responsible for the ceremonial task of attending at dinners, seating the guests and serving dishes.
noun
One who sews.
Example Sentences
- "There was a blockage in the sewer after an item of clothing was flushed down the toilet."
- "One of the hidden glories of Victorian engineering is proper drains. Isolating a city’s effluent and shipping it away in underground sewers has probably saved more lives than any medical procedure except vaccination."
- "While the Saxon was plunged in these painful reflections, the door of their prison opened, and gave entrance to a sewer, holding his white rod of office."
- "His nephew Charles, meanwhile, had grown up in the royal household, working as a sewer, or waiter."
- "Up under the roof three men are making boys’ jackets at twenty cents a piece, of which the sewer takes eight, the ironer three, the finisher five cents, and the buttonhole-maker two and a quarter, leaving a cent and three-quarters to pay for the drumming up, the fetching and bringing back of the goods."
- "the apple-leaf sewer, Ancylis nubeculana"
Etymology
From Middle English sewer, seuer, from Anglo-Norman sewere (“water-course”), from Old French sewiere (“overflow channel for a fishpond”), from Vulgar Latin *exaquāria (“drain for carrying water off”), from Latin ex (“out of, from”) + aquāria (“of or pertaining to waters”) or from a root *exaquāre.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈsuɚ/
- British English: /ˈs(j)uːə/