borrow pit

nounCivil Engineering.

a pit from which construction material, as sand or gravel, is taken for use as fill at another location.

Origin of borrow pit

First recorded in 1890–95

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

How to use borrow pit in a sentence

The borrow-pit must be carefully located—convenient of access, far enough from the track not to be a danger spot to it.
The Modern Railroad | Edward Hungerford
Bigmouth buffalo were rare, and were taken only in quiet parts of larger streams, and in the borrow-pit at Station 6-S.
Fishes of the Big Blue River Basin, Kansas | W. L. Minckley
It may be placed in a jhil, a paddy field, or a borrow pit by the railway line.
A Bird Calendar for Northern India | Douglas Dewar

British Dictionary definitions for borrow pit

borrow pit

noun

civil engineering an excavation dug to provide fill to make up ground elsewhere

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Browse