drainpipe

US/ˈdɹeɪnˌpaɪp/

nounB12 meaningsVery rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speechleans spoken

Other forms: drainpipes

A drainpipe is the tube that carries rainwater down the outside of a building. The one running from the gutter to the ground.

On a British house it is the vertical pipe at the corner of the wall; American English calls the same thing a downspout. Drainpipes come with a small set of scenes attached: leaves blocking one, a cat stuck behind one, a burglar climbing one. There is also drainpipe trousers, a 1950s cut so narrow they look like the pipe, and drainpipes alone can mean those trousers. Below ground, the word for the same job is simply a drain.

Definitions of drainpipe

1noundrainpipeA pipe carrying rainwater or waste down and away from a building.B1
“The drainpipe was blocked with wet leaves.”
2nounnarrowVery narrow trousers.C1
“He wore drainpipes and pointed shoes.”

Where it comes from

From drain + pipe.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Man Called Ove

First appears in chapter 20 of A Man Called Ove.

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