culvert
/ˈkʌlvə(ɹ)t/ noun, verb
Forms culverts culverting culverted
- noun A channel crossing under a road or railway for the draining of water.
- verb (transitive, intransitive) To channel (a stream of water) through a culvert.
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”).
Webster’s 1913
Etymology [Prob. from OF. coulouere, F. couloir, channel, gutter, gallery, fr. couler to flow. See Cullis.]
Sources: Wiktionary · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “culvert”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details