Meaning

A pipe or channel, or system of pipes or channels, used to remove human waste and to provide drainage..

Definitions by Sense

1. A pipe or channel, or system of pipes or channels, used to remove human waste and to provide drainage.
2. (transitive) To provide (a place) with a system of sewers.
3. (historical) An official in charge of a princely household, also responsible for the ceremonial task of attending at dinners, seating the guests and serving dishes.
4. One who sews.
5. A small tortricid moth, the larva of which sews together the edges of a leaf using silk.

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.

His nephew Charles, meanwhile, had grown up in the royal household, working as a sewer, or waiter.

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.

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

Word Forms

• sewers
• sewering
• sewered

Synonyms for sewer

Related Words

When Should You Use Sewer?

Use sewer when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.

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