Library / English Dictionary

CISTERN

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

An artificial reservoir for storing liquids; especially an underground tank for storing rainwater

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("cistern" is a kind of...):

pool (an excavation that is (usually) filled with water)

reservoir (tank used for collecting and storing a liquid (as water or oil))

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "cistern"):

cesspit; cesspool; sink; sump (a covered cistern; waste water and sewage flow into it)

rain barrel (a barrel used as a cistern to hold rainwater)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A tank that holds the water used to flush a toilet

Synonyms:

cistern; water tank

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("cistern" is a kind of...):

storage tank; tank (a large (usually metallic) vessel for holding gases or liquids)

Sense 3

Meaning:

A sac or cavity containing fluid especially lymph or cerebrospinal fluid

Synonyms:

cistern; cisterna

Classified under:

Nouns denoting body parts

Hypernyms ("cistern" is a kind of...):

sac (a structure resembling a bag in an animal)

Credits

 Context examples: 

When it was finished, the queen was so delighted, that she ran with it in her lap to the king, who ordered it to be put into a cistern full of water, with me in it, by way of trial, where I could not manage my two sculls, or little oars, for want of room.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

A lateral infratentorial subarachnoid cistern.

(Lateral Infratentorial Cistern, NCI Thesaurus)

When they arrived at Mr Korbes’s house, he was not at home; so the mice drew the carriage into the coach-house, Chanticleer and Partlet flew upon a beam, the cat sat down in the fireplace, the duck got into the washing cistern, the pin stuck himself into the bed pillow, the millstone laid himself over the house door, and the egg rolled himself up in the towel.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

One of the supratentorial cisterns.

(Anterior Supratentorial Cistern, NCI Thesaurus)