impluvium

American  

[im-ploo-vee-uhm] / ɪmˈplu vi əm /

noun

• impluvia
  plural

1. a basin or tank within a compluvium.

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• impluvia
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of impluvium

1805–15; < Latin, equivalent to impluv-, base of impluere to rain (upon, into) ( im- im- ¹ + pluere to rain; cf. pluvial) + -ium -ium

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

impluvium impluvia

Where the gift shop and other later additions now sit was once an impluvium, a Roman-era cistern that sat in a soaring 50-foot-high space that was open to the sky.

From New York Times ● Apr. 11, 2023

These main streets, which ran at right angles to each other, had underground drainage made of a sunken impluvium with an outlet to carry away storm water.

From The Guardian ● Mar. 18, 2016

The house possesses features that match the horizontally fluted walls, pillars, central impluvium and carved decorations observed in the architecture of ancient Benin.

From The Guardian ● Mar. 18, 2016

The breadth of the impluvium, according to Vitruvius, was not less than a quarter, nor greater than a third, of the whole breadth of the atrium; its length was regulated by the same standard.

From Museum of Antiquity A Description of Ancient Life by T. L. (Thomas Louis) Haines

But although the other rooms might vary in number and size and use, the atrium, the middle space, in which were the altar and the impluvium or water pool, remained the same.

From The Childhood of Rome by Louise Lamprey

The houses of Italy and of the south generally were constructed to look inwards upon open impluvia, colonnaded courts and garden plots, and, as befitted a hot climate, they had few outer windows.

From The Romanization of Roman Britain by F. (Francis) Haverfield

May not the word umbrella have been applied to various sorts of impluvia?

From Notes and Queries, Number 64, January 18, 1851 by Various

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