cloaca

Estimated CEFR level: C2 — Proficiency

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

noun (zoology) the cavity (in birds, reptiles, amphibians, most fish, and monotremes but not mammals) at the end of the digestive tract into which the intestinal, genital, and urinary tracts open
noun a waste pipe that carries away sewage or surface water

Borrowed from Latin cloāca (“sewer”), related to cluō (“cleanse; purge”), but the derivation is uncertain.

En algunas, el sistema de cloacas, alcantarillado y desagüe se halla en excelentes condiciones. — The Spanish American Reader, Ernesto Nelson
After working an hour I began to speculate on the distance one had to go before the cloaca was reached, the chances we had of missing it altogether. — The war of the worlds, H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
Thence it poured down, cleansing, sluicing, working machinery of all sorts, through an infinite variety of capillary channels into the great drains, the cloacae maximae, and so carried the sewage out to the agricultural areas that surrounded London on every side. — Tales of Space and Time, H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

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