different between culvert vs ditch

English

Etymology

Origin obscure. A number of possible etymologies have been suggested including

1. a dialectal word,
2. a word related to the name of the now-forgotten inventor,
3. a derivation from French couvert (“covered”), although couvert is not used in this sense and the French translation of culvert is ponceau or buse de drainage,
4. a derivation from an unrecorded Dutch word, possibly *coul-vaart, a combination of Dutch coul-, from French couler (“to flow”), and Dutch vaart (“a trip by boat, a canal”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?k?lv?(?)t/

Noun

culvert (plural culverts)

1. A transverse channel under a road or railway for the draining of water.
   • 1922, Virginia Woolf, Jacob's Room, Vintage Classics, paperback edition, page 91

     A raft of twigs stayed upon a stone, suddenly detached itself, and floated towards the culvert.

   • 1996, Janette Turner Hospital, Oyster, Virago Press, paperback edition, page 167

     After she left, I ran away for a day, and hid myself, solitary, in a culvert under the railway lines.

Derived terms

• Thorpe Culvert

Translations

Verb

culvert (third-person singular simple present culverts, present participle culverting, simple past and past participle culverted)

1. To channel (a stream of water) through a culvert.

References

Middle English

Alternative forms

• colwarde, culvard, culvart, kilvarde

Etymology

From Old French colvert, from Late Latin coll?bertus.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?kulv?rt/, /?kulward/

Adjective

culvert

1. vile, nefarious

References

• “culvert, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /d?t?/
• Rhymes: -?t?

Etymology 1

From Middle English dich, from Old English d?? (“trench, moat”) from Proto-Germanic *d?kaz (compare Swedish dike, Icelandic díki, West Frisian dyk (“dam”), Dutch dijk (“id.”), German Teich (“pond”)), from Proto-Indo-European *d?eyg?- (“to stick, set up”) (compare Latin f?g? (“to affix, fasten”), Lithuanian diegti (“to prick; plant”), dýgsti (“to geminate, grow”)). Doublet of dike.

Noun

ditch (plural ditches)

1. A trench; a long, shallow indentation, as for irrigation or drainage.

2. (Ireland) A raised bank of earth and the hedgerow on top.
   • c. 1947, Patrick Kavanagh, Stony Grey Soil

     You flung a ditch on my vision

     Of beauty, love and truth.

     O stony grey soil of Monaghan

     You burgled my bank of youth!

   • 2013, Frank McNally, When Anglophone lines get crossed

     The original ditches were created by digging trenches, as boundaries and/or irrigation. But to the English, the ditch is the trench. Whereas in Ireland, the ditch is the raised bank of earth and the hedgerow on top. (As for the trench, where I come from that’s a sheugh).

References

Derived terms

Translations

See also

• fosse
• moat

Verb

ditch (third-person singular simple present ditches, present participle ditching, simple past and past participle ditched)

1. (transitive) To discard or abandon.

2. To deliberately crash-land an airplane on water.

3. (intransitive) To deliberately not attend classes; to play hookey.

4. (intransitive) To dig ditches.

5. (transitive) To dig ditches around.

6. (transitive) To throw into a ditch.

Synonyms

• abandon
• discard
• dump
• jettison
• lose
• shed
• See also Thesaurus:junk

Translations

Etymology 2

From earlier deche, from Middle English dechen, from Old English d?can (“to smear, plaster, daub”). More at deech.

Verb

ditch (third-person singular simple present ditches, present participle ditching, simple past and past participle ditched)

1. Alternative form of deech

Noun

ditch (usually uncountable, plural ditches)

1. Alternative form of deech