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View synonyms for gutter

gutter

[ guht-er ]

noun

  1. a channel at the side or in the middle of a road or street, for leading off surface water.
  2. a channel at the eaves or on the roof of a building, for carrying off rainwater.
  3. any channel, trough, or the like for carrying off fluid.
  4. a furrow or channel made by running water.
  5. Bowling. a sunken channel extending along each side of a bowling lane, to catch balls that stray over the edge.
  6. the state or abode of those who live in degradation, squalor, etc.:

    the language of the gutter.

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


verb (used without object)

  1. to flow in streams.
  2. (of a candle) to lose molten wax accumulated in a hollow space around the wick.
  3. (of a lamp or candle flame) to burn low or to be blown so as to be nearly extinguished.
  4. to form gutters, as water does.

verb (used with object)

  1. to make gutters in; channel.
  2. to furnish with a gutter or gutters:

    to gutter a new house.

gutter

/ ˈɡʌtə /

noun

  1. a channel along the eaves or on the roof of a building, used to collect and carry away rainwater
  2. a channel running along the kerb or the centre of a road to collect and carry away rainwater
  3. a trench running beside a canal lined with clay puddle
  4. either of the two channels running parallel to a tenpin bowling lane
  5. printing
    1. the space between two pages in a forme
    2. the white space between the facing pages of an open book
    3. the space between two columns of type
  6. the space left between stamps on a sheet in order to separate them
  7. surfing a dangerous deep channel formed by currents and waves
  8. (in gold-mining) the channel of a former watercourse that is now a vein of gold
  9. the gutter
    a poverty-stricken, degraded, or criminal environment
“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


verb

  1. tr to make gutters in
  2. intr to flow in a stream or rivulet
  3. intr (of a candle) to melt away by the wax forming channels and running down in drops
  4. intr (of a flame) to flicker and be about to go out
“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
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Derived Forms

  • ˈgutter-ˌlike, adjective
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Other Words From

  • gutter·like adjective
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Word History and Origins

Origin of gutter1

First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English gutter, goter, from Old French go(u)tiere, equivalent to goutte “drop” + -iere, feminine of -ier; gout, -er 2
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Word History and Origins

Origin of gutter1

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

see in the gutter .
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Example Sentences

Yes, you might have to recharge your blower—but odds are your gutters aren’t going to need hours of power to get things clean.

For example, single family homes would pay a flat fee, no matter how well built they were to send the water into the ground instead of out into the gutter.

The other day, I watched as one of the parents perched on one of our gutters, a worm hanging from its beak.

Replacing your gutters may cost you a little more than planting flowers and painting your door, however, it will go a long way in your home’s curb appeal.

Vinyl gutter systems are less expensive but are infamous for cracking over time in our cold weather.

He piles the trash into the can and stands in the gutter, waiting for the light to change.

Speaking with The Tottenville Review, Foy calls his school of writing “gutter opera.”

But all publications seem to go to the gutter when it comes to Lewinsky.

But I reserve the distinction for gutter dwelling and otherwise abhorrent behavior to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.

Davis begins the film, punched by an aggressor into the gutter and ends it the same way.

A drunken man would reel from one side to the other until he fell down a cellar trap-door, into the gutter, or into the sea.

And to think that those documents are perhaps lying in the gutter at this very moment!

He was in a dreadful condition—a soiled and hopeless mass from the gutter out of which he had been rescued.

At the doors people sit drinking round tables placed on the pavement or in the rank, poisonous gutter.

He had been drunk over in town, and laid in the gutter all night, and he was a sight to look at.

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Related Words

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.

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