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
Enrique's Journey
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Pax
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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:
Ducking into Maryam Lashkari, Hodjat Salimi and Oscar Tuazon’s interactive sculpture — an enormous cardboard tube lying on its side — feels like entering a culvert or a bomb shelter.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 20, 2026
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
He said the culvert in question had a debris screen which did not require a padlock.
From BBC ● May 8, 2026
He has slept on the ground; in a sewage culvert, curled up with other migrants; on top of gravestones.
From "Enrique's Journey" by Sonia Nazario
Often the barriers are small culverts or weirs that are redundant and could be removed, said Dr Janina Gray, head of science at environment charity WildFish.
From BBC ● Mar. 24, 2026
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
Removing blockages like culverts has restored the natural movements of many water bodies, creating new habitat for chum and other species.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 6, 2024
Clouds of smoke rise from the mountains to the south and the east as Philippine demolition squads blast bridges and culverts, hoping to keep the Japanese at bay.
From "At Last She Stood" by Erin Entrada Kelly
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.
