plumber

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   One who furnishes, fits, and repairs pipes and other apparatus for the conveyance of water, gas, or drainage.

   Hannah Spencer, a local plumber and Green party councillor, was elected as the party’s first MP in northern England after overturning Labour’s 13,000-vote majority.

2. 2
   noun

   A person who investigates or prevents leaks of information.

   It involved the break-in of the office of Mr. Lewis Fielding, Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist, by the White House “plumbers.”

3. 3
   noun

   A urologist.

   […] began the month with an operation at St. Joseph Hospital in Aurora, Ill. His surgeon, by the way, was a "plumber” – urologist.

4. 4
   verb

   To botch or ruin.

   There is nothing to work him into a fine feeling of agony and despair like an exam scheduled for the next day, or a paper to write, or a concert in which he is to sing. Wish him the top of the morning when he is looking forward to one of these events, and then hear the woeful story of how badly he is going to be plumbered.

5. 5
   verb

   To work as a plumber.

   Joe Staudinger plumbered so well that on Saturday night boiling water came from both hot and cold faucets.

6. 6
   verb

   To work on (something) as a plumber.

   PIPES PLUMBERED BY US stay plumbered till they wear out. No leaky joints or splitting follow our work. How about the pipes on your steam or hot water heater? Don’t they need repacking or perhaps replacing? HAVE US LOOK AT THEM NOW.

7. 7
   verb

   To do, work, devise (something).

   Q. [Mr. Goodman] At the period of time we have spoken of, that strike settled down, did it not, in 1910 and 1911, and there was no strike? A. [Fred C. Schanberger] No. Q. What happened to the Vaudeville Managers’ Co-operative Association’s activities at that time? A. Oh, they kind of plumbered it along and I think I never heard of it so far as I am concerned until this second strike was started.

8. 8
   verb

   To equip (something) with plumbing.

   How many times should a bathroom be “plumbered”? IT should be “plumbered” once more if it is an old bathroom of the tin-tub, iron-pipe era. Call in your plumber and have him rip out the old, unsanitary fixtures and the rusting iron or steel pipe and put in modern fixtures connected with good brass pipe that cannot rust. If you are building a new house it should be “plumbered” just once.

Etymology

From Middle English plumber, from Old French plummier (French plombier); from Latin plumbārius, from plumbum (“lead or lead shot”). The verb sense “to botch” is perhaps from the negative stereotype of the occupation.