gutter

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a channel along a roof or roadside for carrying off rainwater

   Leaves clogged the gutter, so the water spilled over the eaves.

Simplified etymology

Gutter came through Old French gotiere from Latin gutta, “a drop,” and originally meant a natural or artificial watercourse. In the 16th century it acquired the sense “a furrow or track made by running water,” from which its main modern meaning developed. The gutter became associated with very poor people in the mid-19th century; gutter journalism appeared around the same period, and gutter press by the century’s end.

From Old French goutiere ('gutter, drainpipe'), from goute ('a drop'), from Latin gutta ('a drop').

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External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary