Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The hole at the bottom of a sink or tub, which can be blocked using a plug.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a hole into which a plug fits (especially a hole where water drains away)

Etymologies

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Examples

  • The International Cricket Council has reversed its decision to cut the number of teams in the 2015 World Cup, throwing a lifeline to the so-called minnows who were fast heading down the international sporting plughole.

    ICC Goes Back to 14 Teams for 2015 World Cup 2011

  • The euro continues to bob around at $1.2975, rather like a plastic duck threatening to slip down the plughole.

    Eurozone crisis live: Merkel offers UK olive branch as euro slides again - 14 December 2011 2011

  • I wouldn't have let the dramatic tension in the show's overarching story drain away down the plughole.

    MIND MELD: If We Ran Battlestar Galactica 2009

  • Yes, Betamax gave better pictures and sound, and was slicker and nicer to use, but once again, masses of Japanese Yen went down the plughole as the great buying public sniffed and moved on...

    David Julian Price: When Two Tribes Go To War David Julian Price 2011

  • The International Cricket Council has reversed its decision to cut the number of teams in the 2015 World Cup, throwing a lifeline to the so-called minnows who were fast heading down the international sporting plughole.

    ICC Goes Back to 14 Teams for 2015 World Cup 2011

  • Wasn't there a horror film with killer slugs coming up the plughole into a lady's bath and er.

    Where are all the malacologists? AYDIN 2009

  • At the end of each day I like scrubbing the emerging calluses, like a line of little pebbles across my palms, and watching the dirt-tinged water flow down the plughole.

    Back to the land: from London to sheep farming on Eigg 2011

  • The imagery is often striking: a building bends and collapses as if made of thin rubber; a wall is sucked into an imaginary plughole; a blurry figure suddenly shatters into tiny fragments.

    Trauma – review 2011

  • Some negatives: it's about 100 pages too long, and its plotlines tangle and multiply to the point where, like a plughole clotted with hairs, the flow gets interrupted.

    Archive 2010-01-01 Adam Roberts 2010

  • An analogy of the adjustment to the change in energy balance is - if you turn on a tap over the sink and allow the water to drain out the plughole.

    Archive 2010-03-01 Sou 2010

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