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drainage

UK/ˈdɹeɪnəd͡ʒ/US/ˈdɹeɪnəd͡ʒ/
nounB2+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #8,650 of 15,258mostly written

Other forms: drainages

Drainage is the removal of water from land or buildings. Poor drainage, a drainage ditch, improve the drainage.

In farming it decides what will grow, and whole landscapes exist because of it — the Fens of eastern England are drained wetland and are still below sea level. In a garden, poor drainage kills more plants than drought does.

Tomascastelazo · CC BY-SA 3.0

Definitions of drainage

  1. 1noundrainageThe removal of water from land or buildings.B2+

    “The town spent millions improving drainage after the streets flooded twice in one year.”

drainage is a removal.

Where it comes from

  1. Proto-Germanic

    *drauhnōną

  2. Proto-West Germanic

    *drauhnōn

  3. Old English

    drēahnian

  4. Middle English

    *dreinen

  5. English

    drain

  6. English, today

    drainage

From drain + -age. drain comes from Middle English dreinen, from Old English drēahnian, from Proto-West Germanic drauhnōn, from Proto-Germanic drauhnōną, from draugiz. Akin to Old English drūgian (“to dry up”), Old English drūgaþ (“dryness, drought”), Old English drȳġe (“dry”). More at dry*.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Word Building

Practise this word

drainage in the wild

  • Irrigation and drainage improvements are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

    Irrigation

  • For a discussion of the role of drainage practices in agriculture.

    Irrigation

  • A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, the drainage divide, made up of a succession of elevated features, such as ridges and hills.

    Drainage basin

  • Other terms for a drainage basin are catchment area, catchment basin, drainage area, river basin, water catchment, water basin, and impluvium.

    Drainage basin

  • Ditches are commonly seen around farmland, especially in areas that have required drainage, such as The Fens in eastern England and much of the Netherlands.

    Ditch

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the drēahnian family

drain

drainage — used about once every 3,740 pages · #8,650 · point at the bar for the others