cesspool

[ ses-pool ]
See synonyms for cesspool on Thesaurus.com
noun
  1. a cistern, well, or pit for retaining the sediment of a drain or for receiving the sewage from a house.

  2. any filthy receptacle or place.

  1. any place of moral filth or immorality: a cesspool of iniquity.

Origin of cesspool

1
1575–85; cess (<Italian cesso privy <Latin rēcessusrecess, place of retirement) + pool1

Words Nearby cesspool

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use cesspool in a sentence

  • I was in the pit, the abyss, the human cesspool, the shambles and the charnel-house of our civilization.

  • They are more fickle and cowardly than any other people in this cesspool which they call God's earth.

    The Making of a Saint | William Somerset Maugham
  • All the vice and misery of the country got thrown into that cesspool.

    Ravenshoe | Henry Kingsley
  • Once again I told her of my fear, my anxiety for her safety among those rough men in that cesspool of iniquity.

    The Trail of '98 | Robert W. Service
  • I had rescued him from one of his periodical plunges into the cesspool of debauch, and he was peaked, pallid, penitent.

    The Trail of '98 | Robert W. Service

British Dictionary definitions for cesspool

cesspool

cesspit (ˈsɛsˌpɪt)

/ (ˈsɛsˌpuːl) /


noun
  1. Also called: sink, sump a covered cistern, etc, for collecting and storing sewage or waste water

  2. a filthy or corrupt place: a cesspool of iniquity

Origin of cesspool

1
C17: changed (through influence of pool 1) from earlier cesperalle, from Old French souspirail vent, air, from soupirer to sigh; see suspire

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012