gutter

[guht-er]

SEE MORE SYNONYMS FOR gutter ON THESAURUS.COM

noun

a channel at the side or in the middle of a road or street, for leading off surface water.

a channel at the eaves or on the roof of a building, for carrying off rain water.

any channel, trough, or the like for carrying off fluid.

a furrow or channel made by running water.

Bowling. a sunken channel on each side of the alley from the line marking the limit of a fair delivery of the ball to the sunken area behind the pins.

the state or abode of those who live in degradation, squalor, etc.: the language of the gutter.

the white space formed by the inner margins of two facing pages in a bound book, magazine, or newspaper.

verb (used without object)

to flow in streams.

(of a candle) to lose molten wax accumulated in a hollow space around the wick.

(of a lamp or candle flame) to burn low or to be blown so as to be nearly extinguished.

to form gutters, as water does.

verb (used with object)

to make gutters in; channel.

to furnish with a gutter or gutters: to gutter a new house.

Origin of gutter

1250–1300; Middle English gutter, goter < Anglo-French goutiere, equivalent to goutte drop (see gout) + -iere, feminine of -ier -er²

Related formsgut·ter·like, adjective

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Related Words for gutter

eaves, duct, tube, dike, pipe, sewer, culvert, conduit, funnel, drain, gully, spout, trench, sluice, trough, moat, channel, watercourse, runnel, fosse

Examples from the Web for gutter

Contemporary Examples of gutter

He piles the trash into the can and stands in the gutter, waiting for the light to change.
Stanley Booth on the Life and Hard Times of Blues Genius Furry Lewis
Stanley Booth
June 7, 2014
Speaking with The Tottenville Review, Foy calls his school of writing “gutter opera.”
Novelist D. Foy Dubs His Debut ‘Gutter Opera’ And Who Are We To Argue?
J.T. Price
May 12, 2014
But all publications seem to go to the gutter when it comes to Lewinsky.
Stop Slut-Shaming Monica Lewinsky!
Emily Shire
May 7, 2014
But I reserve the distinction for gutter dwelling and otherwise abhorrent behavior to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.
Lack of Civility is Destroying Washington D.C.
Ron Christie
April 11, 2014
Davis begins the film, punched by an aggressor into the gutter and ends it the same way.
Why No Oscar Love For 'Inside Llewyn Davis'?
Tim Teeman
January 20, 2014

Historical Examples of gutter

I can throw him in the gutter as easy as I could them young ones, and he knows it.
Ester Ried Yet Speaking
Isabella Alden
A dozen times on the way home had Dirk been on the point of consigning it to the gutter.
Ester Ried Yet Speaking
Isabella Alden
Why, they might just as well be thrown into the gutter and carried off in the scavenger's cart.
The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete
Emile Zola
They gutter highways, but oftenest let Low Ways gutter them.
Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 3, April 16, 1870
Various
You have begun life at the top of the tree, and you have chosen to fling your chances into the gutter.
Henry Dunbar
M. E. Braddon

British Dictionary definitions for gutter

gutter

noun

a channel along the eaves or on the roof of a building, used to collect and carry away rainwater

a channel running along the kerb or the centre of a road to collect and carry away rainwater

a trench running beside a canal lined with clay puddle

either of the two channels running parallel to a tenpin bowling lane

printing

the space between two pages in a forme
the white space between the facing pages of an open book
the space between two columns of type

the space left between stamps on a sheet in order to separate them

surfing a dangerous deep channel formed by currents and waves

Australian (in gold-mining) the channel of a former watercourse that is now a vein of gold

the gutter a poverty-stricken, degraded, or criminal environment

verb

(tr) to make gutters in

(intr) to flow in a stream or rivulet

(intr) (of a candle) to melt away by the wax forming channels and running down in drops

(intr) (of a flame) to flicker and be about to go out

Derived Formsgutter-like, adjective

Word Origin for gutter

C13: from Anglo-French goutiere, from Old French goute a drop, from Latin gutta

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

Word Origin and History for gutter

late 13c., "watercourse, water drainage channel along the side of a street," from Anglo-Norman gotere, from Old French guitere, goutiere (13c., Modern French gouttière) "gutter, spout" (of water), from goute "a drop," from Latin gutta "a drop." Meaning "furrow made by running water" is from 1580s. Meaning "trough under the eaves of a roof to carry off rainwater" is from mid-14c. Figurative sense of "low, profane" is from 1818. In printers' slang, from 1841.

late 14c., "to make or run in channels," from gutter (n.). In reference to candles (1706) it is from the channel that forms on the side as the molten wax flows off. Related: Guttered; guttering.

Idioms and Phrases with gutter

gutter

see in the gutter.