jawhole

• jaw-hole, jaw hole

Scottish dialectal term in use since the mid-1700s, with an early appearance in 1760. From jaw (a Scots verb meaning "to pour, throw out, or splash) +‎ hole.

jawhole (plural jawholes)

1. (Scotland, dialectal, dated) A hole or an open drain into which sewage or waste water is thrown; the opening of a sewer; or a cesspool or cesspit, an underground pit or container used to collect and store sewage and wastewater from a house in areas without a centralized sewer system.
   • 1842, Walker, Alexander, Purification of Edinburgh, etc. [Letters on the sanitary condition of Edinburgh.]‎^[1], page 4:

     This jawhole, as it is connected with the drains of the neighbourhood and of the Palace itself, is a real mouth of Avernus, vomiting at all times, but especially in warm weather, a pestilential stretch on all who live in its vicinity, and being a perpetual cause of dangerous fevers. [...] close to Macbain and Macdonald’s jawhole, one gentleman has suffered a severe attack of fever…

   • 1864, Latto, William Duncan, Tammas Bodkin: Or The Humours of a Scottish Tailor‎^[2]:

     […] Nor did the mischief end even wi’ that, bad as it was, for ayont his Reverence, was the jawhole, whereinto him, an’ me, an’ the divots played plouter, garrin’ the fulzie jaup in a’ directions, fylin’ a grand table-claith o’ Wattie Webster’s weavin’ an’ my mither’s ain spinnin’, that was dryin’ on a scrog near-bye […] Whaever is curious to ken what thochts were likely to be umost in oor minds when we faund oorsels i’ the jawhole, maun juist gang through a similar operation on their ain accoont, an’ then they’ll be able to speak frae experience. […] But my certie! if I didna mak’ my feet my freends, I did naething; for as soon as I got oot o’ the jawhole, I set aff what I could scour to Treetaps, to my grandfaither, an’ doon the haill story to him.

   • 1879, Notes on the folk-lore of the northern counties of England and the borders‎^[3]:

     A hare, a creature closely connected with witchcraft since the memorable day when the prince of necromancers. Sir Michael Scot, was turned into a hare by the witch of Falsehope, and hunted by his own hounds, till, jaded and discomfited, he was fain to take refuge in his own jawhole (anglice, common sewer).

   • 1910, MacDonald, Hugh, Rambles Round Glasgow Descriptive Historical & Traditional‎^[4], page 212:

     The heritors, meanwhile, for ht most part attended public worship in a neighbouring dissenting meeting-house, which Dr. Fleming, who was a keen wit, had satirically called “the Jawhole,” as being a sort of receptacle for the refuse of his congregation. […] “Poor thing, what a pity it is they did not send ye down the road to gabble with kindred cattle in the Jawhole; but I daresay,” he continued, “it is perhaps as well as that when they have not the grace to show their own faces here, they should at least send a suitable proxy.”

   • 2017 April 12, “Surviving a Jawhole disaster in La Yacata”, in Surviving Mexico‎^[5], archived from the original on 24 June 2022:

     These smaller than requisite pipes run down the road and swerve to the left and open out to the arroyo (an open drainage pit or jaw hole). The little towns up the road, Caricheo, Pamaceo, La Ordeña, Las Peñas, all have the same jaw hole. The sewage goes away–to where I’m not exactly sure.

2. A jawbox or tenement sink.