cloaca

Borrowed from Latin cloāca (“sewer”), from cluō (“cleanse; purge”).[1]

• (UK) IPA^(key): /kləʊˈeɪkə/
• (US) IPA^(key): /kloʊˈeɪkə/
• Rhymes: -eɪkə

cloaca (plural cloacas or cloacae)

1. (sometimes figuratively) A sewer.
   • 1773, Gentleman's Magazine, No. 43, p. 598:

     The Thames, polluted with the filthy effusions of the cloacae.

   • 1850, Thomas Carlyle, Latter-day Pamphlets, Ch. iv, p. 46:
   • […] that tremendous cloaca of Pauperism […]
2. (zoology) The duct in reptiles, amphibians and birds, as well as most fish and some mammals, which serves as the common outlet for urination, defecation, and reproduction.
   • 1822, John Mason Good, The Study of Medicine, Vol. I, p. 7:

     In birds the rectum, at the termination of its canal, forms an oval or elongated pouch […] and then expands into a cavity, which has been named cloaca.

3. An outhouse or lavatory.
   • 1840, Frederick Marryat, Olla Podrida, Ch. xxiv:

     To every house […] a cloaca.

4. (anatomy) A duct through which gangrenous material escapes a body.
   • 1846, Frederick Brittan translating Joseph François Malgaigne as Manual of Operative Surgery, p. 172

     Across this shell [sc. of bone] small holes are eaten, by which the matter escapes, and which are called cloacae (Weidmann).

• (sewer): See sewer
• (outhouse or lavatory): See Thesaurus:bathroom

• cloacal
• persistent cloaca

Borrowed from Latin cloaca.

• IPA^(key): /ˌkloːˈaː.kaː/

• Audio

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• Hyphenation: clo‧a‧ca

cloaca f (plural cloaca's)

1. (zoology) cloaca (duct in certain vertebrates used for reproduction and excreting digestive waste)

• cloacadier

Borrowed from Latin cloaca. Cognate to the inherited doublet chiavica.

cloaca f (plural cloache)

1. sewer
2. cesspit, cesspool
3. (anatomy) cloaca

From cluō (“cleanse”).

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /kloˈaː.ka/, [kɫɔˈaː.ka]

cloāca f (genitive cloācae); first declension

1. A sewer or underground drain
2. (humorous) The stomach of a drunken or voracious woman

First-declension noun.

• cloācālis
• cloācārium
• cloācula

• cloaca in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• cloaca in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• cloaca in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition, 1883–1887)
• cloaca in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898) Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• cloaca in William Smith et al., editor (1890) A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin

Borrowed from Latin cloaca.

• Rhymes: -aka

cloaca f (plural cloacas)

1. (anatomy) cloaca (excretory and genital duct in bird, reptiles and fish)

Borrowed from Latin cloāca (“sewer”), from cluō (“cleanse”).

cloaca f (plural cloacas)

1. sewer, storm drain
2. (zoology) cloaca