[f. JAW sb.2, v.2 + HOLE.] A hole into which dirty water or other liquid is ‘jawed’ or thrown; an open entrance to a sewer, house-drain or cesspool.
1760. City Cleaned & County Improv. Jaw-holls or water-spouts of timber [etc.].
1815. Scott, Guy M., i. Piloting with some dexterity along the little path which bordered the formidable jaw-hole, whose vicinity the stranger was made sensible of by means of more organs than one. Ibid. (1824), St. Ronan’s, xxviii. That odoriferous gulf, ycleped, in Scottish phrase, the jawhole; in other words, an uncovered common sewer.
