culvert
Americannoun
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culverts
plural
noun
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a drain or covered channel that crosses under a road, railway, etc
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a channel for an electric cable
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a tunnel through which water is pumped into or out of a dry dock
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of culvert
First recorded in 1765–75; origin uncertain
Explanation
A culvert is a drain — but not the kind that drains your bathtub or empties your bank account. A culvert is any kind of channel or tunnel that directs unwanted water away from roads and other corridors of travel. A culvert is typically built underground to prevent inconveniently located streams and rain runoff from flooding roads, highways, streets, and railroads. Culvert can also be used as a verb: if water pools in your driveway and then seeps into the foundation of your house, soaking the brand-new carpet in the basement that you thought you’d just waterproofed, you might wonder why the builders didn’t culvert that underground stream.
Vocabulary lists containing culvert
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Hottle died Tuesday morning after the car she was a passenger in crashed into a culvert off the side of the road in Ijamsville, Md., the Frederick County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 21, 2026
Hottle and another passenger were in a 1995 Honda Accord driven by a 19-year-old man when it veered off a two-lane highway and struck a culvert, according to Frederick County Sheriff's Office.
From Barron's ● Jul. 21, 2026
McKee explained that homeowners had not raised any safety concerns about the culvert.
From BBC ● May 8, 2026
The bridge spans a culvert, maintained by the city.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 28, 2026
Then she heard Mr. Curtain send S.Q. away, and suspecting a trap, she beat a quick retreat down the culvert to the shore.
From "The Mysterious Benedict Society" by Trenton Lee Stewart
Sometimes at the bottom of those undulations are culverts, or Department of Homeland Security vehicles will pop up.
From Slate ● Feb. 2, 2026
Human waste spilled out of the overflowing communal latrines near Nyariaka’s house and into the fetid water filling the culverts.
From Salon ● Dec. 16, 2025
While councils had spent heavily to repair and upgrade infrastructure in the wake of recent storms, the report found there were still issues with culverts in many places.
From BBC ● Sep. 8, 2025
Excess erosion has also clogged countless culverts, blocked roadways and buried infrastructure, increasing flood and safety concerns.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 31, 2024
They slosh through the culverts in their rubber boots and swing from trees and from the lower beams of the bridge.
From "Cat's Eye" by Margaret Atwood
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
