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Culvert vs Tunnel - What's the difference?

culvert | tunnel |

As nouns the difference between culvert and tunnel

is that culvert is a transverse channel under a road or railway for the draining of water while tunnel is an underground or underwater passage.

As verbs the difference between culvert and tunnel

is that culvert is to channel (a stream of water) through a culvert while tunnel is to make a tunnel through or under something, to burrow.

culvert

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • A transverse channel under a road or railway for the draining of water.
  • * 1922, , Vintage Classics, paperback edition, page 91
  • A raft of twigs stayed upon a stone, suddenly detached itself, and floated towards the culvert .
  • * 1996 , , Virago Press, paperback edition, page 167
  • After she left, I ran away for a day, and hid myself, solitary, in a culvert under the railway lines.

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To channel (a stream of water) through a .
  • tunnel

    English

    (wikipedia tunnel)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • An underground or underwater passage.
  • A passage through or under some obstacle.
  • * 1922 , (Margery Williams), (The Velveteen Rabbit)
  • But very soon he grew to like it, for the Boy used to talk to him, and made nice tunnels for him under the bedclothes that he said were like the burrows the real rabbits lived in.
  • A hole in the ground made by an animal, a burrow.
  • (computing, networking) A wrapper for a protocol that cannot otherwise be used because it is unsupported, blocked, or insecure.
  • A vessel with a broad mouth at one end, a pipe or tube at the other, for conveying liquor, fluids, etc., into casks, bottles, or other vessels; a funnel.
  • The opening of a chimney for the passage of smoke; a flue.
  • * Spenser
  • And one great chimney, whose long tunnel thence / The smoke forth threw.
  • (mining) A level passage driven across the measures, or at right angles to veins which it is desired to reach; distinguished from the drift'', or ''gangway , which is led along the vein when reached by the tunnel.
  • Verb

  • To make a tunnel through or under something, to burrow.
  • To make a tunnel.