[dreyn] 
| 1. | to withdraw or draw off (a liquid) gradually; remove slowly or by degrees, as by filtration: to drain oil from a crankcase. |
| 2. | to withdraw liquid gradually from; make empty or dry by drawing off liquid: to drain a crankcase. |
| 3. | to exhaust the resources of: to drain the treasury. |
| 4. | to deprive of strength; tire. |
| 5. | to flow off gradually. |
| 6. | to become empty or dry by the gradual flowing off of liquid or moisture: This land drains into the Mississippi. |
| 7. | something, as a pipe or conduit, by which a liquid drains. |
| 8. | Surgery. a material or appliance for maintaining the opening of a wound to permit free exit of fluids. |
| 9. | gradual or continuous outflow, withdrawal, or expenditure. |
| 10. | something that causes a large or continuous outflow, expenditure, or depletion: Medical expenses were a major drain on his bank account. |
| 11. | an act of draining. |
| 12. | Physical Geography.
|
| 13. | go down the drain,
|
| drain (drān) v. drained, drain·ing, drains v. tr.
[Middle English dreinen, to strain, drain, from Old English drēahnian.] drain'a·ble adj., drain'er n. |
drain (drān)
n.
A device, such as a tube, inserted into the opening of a wound or into a body or dental cavity to facilitate discharge of fluid or purulent material. v. drained, drain·ing, drains
To draw off a liquid gradually as it forms.
drain jargon
(IBM) To allow a system to complete the processing of its current work before the system becomes unavailable. E.g. draining a device before taking it off-line or telling a web server in a server farm not to accept any new requests but to finish processing any requests it has already accepted.
[The Jargon File]
(2005-07-18)
