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A natural reservoir; a hollow place containing water. "The wide cisterns of the lakes." Blackmore.

A vat or cistern. See 1st Back.

A large shallow vat; a cistern, tub, or trough, used by brewers, distillers, dyers, picklers, gluemakers, and others, for mixing or cooling wort, holding water, hot glue, etc. Hop back, Jack back, the cistern which receives the infusion of malt and hops from the copper. -- Wash back, a vat in which distillers ferment…

Inclosed within a building; as, a fountain or cistern castellated. [Obs.] Johnson.

A cistern or vault at the point where a street gutter discharges into a sewer, to oatch bulky matters which would not pass readly throught the sewer. Knight.

A cistern in the course, or the termination, of a drain, to collect sedimentary or superfluous matter; a privy vault; any receptace of filth. [Written also sesspool.]

fed over the court of a Roman dwelling, through which the rain fell into the impluvium or cistern.

e; to make vacant; to pour out; to discharge; as, to empty a vessel; to empty a well or a cistern. The clouds . . . empty themselves upon the earth. Eccl. xi. 3.

A large tub, cistern, or vessel; a vat. [Obs.] The fats shall overflow with wine and oil. Joel ii. 24.

g, etc. -- Feed door, a door to a furnace, by which to supply coal. -- Feed head. (a) A cistern for feeding water by gravity to a steam boiler. (b) (Founding) An excess of metal above a mold, which serves to render the casting more compact by its pressure; -- also called a riser, deadhead, or simply feed or head Knig…

The hollow, metallic ball of a self-acting faucet, which floats upon the water in a cistern or boiler.

hence, to be able to receive and retain; to have capacity or containing power for. Broken cisterns that can hold no water. Jer. ii. 13. One sees more devils than vast hell can hold. Shak.

In Roman dwellings, a cistern or tank, set in the atrium or peristyle to recieve the water from the roof, by means of the compluvium; generally made ornamental with flowers and works of art around its birm.

o throw in out. with a ladle or dipper; to dip; as, to lade water out of a tub, or into a cistern. And chides the sea that sunders him from thence, Saying, he'll lade it dry to have his way. Shak.

A pipe for conducting rain water from a roof to a cistern or to the ground; a conductor. (h) (Fishing)

A wall of brick, stone, or cement, used as a lining, as of a well, cistern, etc.; a steening.

A vessel, vat, or cistern, in which things are steeped.

The cistern or reservoir made at the lowest point of a mine, from which is pumped the water which accumulates there.

A spring of water passing under ground toward a cistern or conduit.

A large basin or cistern; an artificial receptacle for liquids. Tank engine, a locomotive which carries the water and fuel it requires, thus dispensing with a tender. -- Tank iron, plate iron thinner than boiler plate, and thicker than sheet iron or stovepipe iron. -- Tank worm (Zoöl.), a small nematoid worm found in…