cesspool
Americannoun
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a cistern, well, or pit for retaining the sediment of a drain or for receiving the sewage from a house.
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any filthy receptacle or place.
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any place of moral filth or immorality.
a cesspool of iniquity.
noun
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Also called: sink, sump. a covered cistern, etc, for collecting and storing sewage or waste water
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a filthy or corrupt place
a cesspool of iniquity
Etymology
Origin of cesspool
1575–85; cess (< Italian cesso privy < Latin rēcessus recess, place of retirement) + pool 1
Explanation
Literally, a cesspool is place underground where sewage gathers, but figuratively, you might hear anything that's full of germs or just plain disgusting described as a cesspool. Either way, you'll want to steer clear. Think of a cesspool as an underground swimming pool full of nastiness, which of course rhymes with cess. But the word cesspool isn't just used to describe a storage place underground where sewage is held temporarily. It's also a term you might use to negatively describe something that's swimming in germs or corruption. Stuck on a long flight between two people with a cold? That's a cesspool of germs right there for you.
Vocabulary lists containing cesspool
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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.
“These last two years have been just a cesspool of coercion.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 29, 2026
They’ve come to this cesspool to find the villainous Krem, an unrecognizably vile Matthias Schoenaerts with a mug that’s been pierced all over like he face-planted into a pile of thumbtacks.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 24, 2026
It was into the post-noughties misogynist cesspool that the early feminist blogosphere was born, and initially, it was fun and freewheeling.
From Slate ● Mar. 31, 2026
The misery now being inflicted on poor people crowded into cesspool camps from the Congo to Bangladesh defies description.
From Salon ● Dec. 27, 2025
He never thought he’d miss sleeping in a giant’s leather bed in a drakon-bone hut in a festering cesspool, but right now that sounded like Elysium.
From "The House of Hades" by Rick Riordan
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
