sewer

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.

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: so͞o'ə, IPA^(key): /ˈs(j)uːə/
• (General American) enPR: so͞oər, IPA^(key): /ˈsuɚ/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Audio (UK):

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  Note: this pronunciation may be nonstandard or incorrect: split into two files

• Audio (General Australian):

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• Homophone: suer
• Rhymes: -uːə(ɹ)
• Hyphenation: sew‧er

sewer (plural sewers)

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

   open sewers

   • 2014 June 14, “It’s a gas”, in The Economist‎^[1], volume 411, number 8891, London: The Economist Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 12 June 2014:

     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.

sewer (third-person singular simple present sewers, present participle sewering, simple past and past participle sewered)

1. (transitive) To provide (a place) with a system of sewers.

From Middle English seware, seuere, from Anglo-Norman asseour, from Old French asseoir (“find a seat for”), from Latin assidēre, present active participle of assideō (“attend to”), from ad (“to, towards, at”) + sedeō (“sit”).

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: so͞o'ə, IPA^(key): /ˈs(j)uːə/
• (General American) enPR: so͞oər, IPA^(key): /ˈsuɚ/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• Hyphenation: sew‧er

sewer (plural sewers)

1. (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.
   • 1819 December 20 (indicated as 1820), Walter Scott, chapter VII, in Ivanhoe; a Romance. […], volume II, Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co. […], →OCLC, pages 116–117:

     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.

   • 2011, Thomas Penn, Winter King, Penguin, published 2012, page 287:

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

sew +‎ -er

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: sō'ə, IPA^(key): /ˈsəʊə/
• (US) enPR: sō'ər, IPA^(key): /ˈsoʊɚ/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Homophone: sower
• Rhymes: -əʊə(ɹ)
• Hyphenation: sew‧er

sewer (plural sewers)

1. One who sews.
   • 1890, Jacob A[ugust] Riis, “The Sweaters of Jewtown”, in How the Other Half Lives: Studies among the Tenements of New York, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC, pages 131–132:

     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.

2. A small tortricid moth, the larva of which sews together the edges of a leaf using silk.

   the apple-leaf sewer, Ancylis nubeculana

• (one who sews): sempster/sempstress (man/woman), seamster/seamstress (man/woman), tailor, sewist

• resew, re-sew, ewers, weres, Weser, weers, sweer, ewres, Weers, Ewers

sewer

1. alternative spelling of sèwèr, romanization of ꦱꦺꦮꦺꦂ

sewer

1. alternative form of suren