drainage
(ˈdreɪnɪdʒ)
[f. drain v. + -age.]
1. The action or work of draining.
| 1652 in Stonehouse Axholme (1839) 91 The works..within the dicage and draynage of the Levell of Hatfield Chase. 1834 [see 3]. 1861 Smiles Engineers II. 152 Drainage by the old method of windmills, imported from Holland. 1883 Syd. Soc. Lex., Drainage, surgical, the use of a Drainage tube, or of strands of horse-hair, silk, or other material..in a wound or suppurating cavity for the purpose of removing the fluids therein contained. |
| fig. 1850 W. Irving Goldsmith xvi. 189 This constant drainage of the purse. 1882–3 Schaff Encycl. Relig. Knowl. II. 905/2 That drainage by Rome of the very heart-blood of his fatherland. |
2. a. A system of drains, artificial or natural.
| 1878 Huxley Physiogr. 19 Such a line divides the western drainage of the country from its eastern drainage. |
b. Porous matter, broken fragments, etc., used to drain a flower-pot. (
Cf. draining 3.)
| 1892 Garden. 27 Aug. 191 Pots..filled about three parts of their depth with clean drainage. |
3. That which is drained off by a system of drains; sewage.
| 1834 in Penny Cycl. XXI. 314/2 Their ideas of..drainage never extended to more than taking away the surface drainage. 1857 Chambers's Informat. for People I. 495 The drainage..rises through a false perforated bottom covered with peat-charcoal. 1860 Maury Phys. Geog. Sea §555 Lake Titicaca..receives the drainage of the great inland basin of the Andes. |
4. attrib. and
Comb., as
drainage-area,
drainage-canal,
drainage-district,
drainage-line,
drainage-shaft,
drainage-system,
drainage-tent;
drainage-soaked adj.;
drainage-anchor,
-tube: see
quots. 1883;
drainage-basin, the area of land drained by a river and its tributaries; a catchment area;
= basin n. 12.
| 1883 Syd. Soc. Lex., *Drainage anchor..an india-rubber filament with laterally projecting arms..introduced within a cannula into the cavity of an abscess. |
| 1873 J. Geikie Gt. Ice Age (1894) 549 The *drainage-area of Maggiore, Lugano, and Como. |
| 1882 Nation 13 July 33/1 The topography of its immediate banks and that of its *drainage-basin..are fully set forth. 1885 A. Geikie Text-bk. Geol. (ed. 2) iii. ii. ii. 352 The proportion of mineral matter in river-water varies with the season... Its amount and composition depend upon the nature of the rocks forming the drainage-basin. 1965 A. Holmes Princ. Physical Geol. (ed. 2) xvii. 469 A main river and all its tributaries constitute a river system, and the whole area from which the system derives water and rock-waste is its drainage basin. |
| 1900 Westm. Gaz. 20 Sept. 8/1 The opening of the *drainage canal has given Chicago an excellent supply of pure water. 1966 McGraw-Hill Encycl. Sci. & Technol. 434/1 Drainage canals are deeply cut to facilitate the drainage of surrounding land. |
| 1881 Moore & Masters Epit. Gard. 143 Keeping the..soil from mixing with the *drainage crocks. |
| 1847 Act 10 & 11 Vict. c. 34 §23 Separate *drainage districts. |
| 1882 A. Geikie Text-bk. Geol. 922 The permanence of *drainage-lines is one of the most remarkable features in the geological history of the continents. |
| 1869 R. B. Smyth Gold-f. Victoria 610 The main shaft in which the pumps..are fixed..is sometimes called the water shaft, and the *drainage shaft. |
| 1891 R. Kipling City Dreadf. Nt. 6 The damp, *drainage-soaked soil is sick with the teeming life of a hundred years. |
| 1883 Syd. Soc. Lex., *Drainage tube, a small..india rubber or coiled wire or other tube, with lateral perforations..passed through a cannula into the..cavity to be drained. |
| 1799 G. Smith Laboratory I. 69 Pumps..for carrying off the *drainage water. |
______________________________
[2.] [a.] Substitute for
def.: An area drained; a river valley or drainage basin. (Earlier and later examples.)
| 1866 R. G. Latham Dict. Eng. Lang. I. ii. 761/1 Drainage,..area from which the water is carried off by some natural or artificial channel; district drained: (as, ‘the drainage of the Po, the Thames, &c.’). 1960 Nat. Geographic Jan. 131/1 At dusk we entered the eastern drainage of the mighty Congo. 1986 New Yorker 1 Dec. 73/2 The department looked across the Continental Divide to the Colorado drainage. |