Pl. -æ. [L. cloāca, f. cluĕre to purge (Lewis and Short).]
1. An underground conduit for drainage, a common sewer.
1656. Blount, Glossogr., Cloaca (Lat.), the Channel or Sink of a Towne.
1773. Gentl. Mag., XLIII. 598. The Thames, polluted with the filthy effusions of the cloacæ.
1832. Gell, Pompeiana, II. xiii. 17. The gutter which communicates with the cloaca.
b. A privy or water-closet.
1840. Marryat, Olla Podr., xxiv. To every house … a cloaca.
2. Phys. The common excrementory cavity at the end of the intestinal canal in birds, reptiles, most fishes, and the monotremate mammals.
1834. Good, Study Med. (ed. 4), I. 9. In birds the rectum at the termination of its canal forms an oval or elongated pouch … and then expands into a cavity, which has been named cloaca.
1848. Carpenter, Anim. Phys., Serpents, 79. The intestinal tube … passes backwards … to terminate in the cloaca.
1878. Bell, Gegenbaur’s Comp. Anat., 161. A hind-gut is continued … to open into a cavity common to the openings of the excretory and sexual systems—the cloaca.
3. Path. A passage for morbid matter.
1846. Brittan, trans. Malgaigne’s Man. Oper. Surg., 172. Across this shell [of bone] small holes are eaten, by which the matter escapes, and which are called cloacæ (Weidmann).
1876. trans. Wagner’s Gen. Pathol., 52. Canals leading from gangrenous cavities to the surface are called cloacæ.
4. fig. A receptacle of moral filth; cf. sink.
1850. Carlyle, Latter-d. Pamph., IV. (1872), 139. That tremendous Cloaca of Pauperism.
1879. Blackw. Mag., Aug., 181. The Stock Exchange has been described … as the cloaca bearing with it all the refuse of mankind.
