What the hell is a "sump"??

[dolo amber]

As in "sump pump"? :shrug:

Aside from sounding like something I hope not to come into contact with until I'm elderly and it's unaviodable :scared:, I have no idea what this means.

Yes, I know it apparently keeps water out of your basement, but wouldn't it just be easier to call such a contraption a "basement pump"?? :wtf:

[SarahB]

1. Yeah, weird name.

The apartment I lived in when I first got married had one of these. Damn thing was really loud too. :mad:

[Fenris]

2. Sump

1. A low-lying place, such as a pit, that receives drainage.
2. A cesspool.
2. A hole at the lowest point of a mine shaft into which water is drained in order to be pumped out.
3. The crankcase or oil reservoir of an internal-combustion engine.

[dolo amber]

4. Who asked you, Mr. Webster

:P

[Fenris]

7. Why, you did!

:P

[dolo amber]

9. So I did!

What a cnut I must seem... :blush:

:P

[Fenris]

11. I had no idea you were royalty!

http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/prehistory/vikings/cnutaut.html

[rug]

15. He's whipping your ass Dolo.

[dolo amber]

18. Shut. The. Fuck. Up.

That's fucking beautiful. :7

[Fenris]

21. I know!

Cnut, Cnut, Cnut! It's fun to say! :7

[Igel]

3. "A pit, well, or the like,

in which water or other liquid is collected." Dictionaries are not your enemy.

My parents' old house was in an area with a moderately high water table. Water would collect under the basement floor; it drained into the sump: a 3-foot-deep round hole in the concrete floor.

[Goathead]

5. A sump is a hole

with leaves and debris in it, it acts as a sort of filtering device.

[tridim]

6. It's an actual word!

sump ( P ) Pronunciation Key (smp) n.

1.A low-lying place, such as a pit, that receives drainage.
2.A cesspool.
3.A hole at the lowest point of a mine shaft into which water is drained in order to be pumped out.
4.The crankcase or oil reservoir of an internal-combustion engine.

[hippiechick]

8. Spending time in Wisconsin, are ya ?

:silly: I knew what that was ... grew up listening to one run every night in the basement under my bedroom.

[Thor_MN]

20. Wisconsin is the sump hole of the Upper Midwest

but they drain their excess fluids towards Chicago, so I guess Chicago is where you would stick the sump pump.

[Kire]

10. a low-lying place, a cesspool

sump (smp)
n.

1.
1. A low-lying place, such as a pit, that receives drainage.
2. A cesspool.
2. A hole at the lowest point of a mine shaft into which water is drained in order to be pumped out.
3. The crankcase or oil reservoir of an internal-combustion engine.


{Middle English sompe, marsh, from Middle Low German sump, or from Middle Dutch somp. Sense 2, from German Sumpf, swamp, sump from Middle High German, swamp.}

More: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=sump%20

[Rabrrrrrr]

12. Here ya go

Sump ( P ) Pronunciation Key (smp)
n.

1.
1. A low-lying place, such as a pit, that receives drainage.
2. A cesspool.
2. A hole at the lowest point of a mine shaft into which water is drained in order to be pumped out.
3. The crankcase or oil reservoir of an internal-combustion engine.




In homes in which the groundwater might be above the floor level of the basement, they are designed to drain excess water into a sump - which, as you can see from the definition, is a hole, and which when building is put into the basement floor - so that the water won't drain through the walls or other onoxious paths.

So, a sump pump is the pump that pumps from the sump. A basement pump would be a pump that sits on the basement floor, perhaps, and pumps out flooding, but would not sit in a sump, because then it would be a sump pump.

if a person were really worried (like my aunt, who lives in a swamp), you might want a sump pump AND a basement pump, to get twice as much pumpage in the heavy rainfalls. My aunt had an awful time wshen they first moved into their house, because it was ONLY a basement for almost three years before they put a house on it, and flooded constantly.

That basement still floods, 60 years later. because, as I said, she lives in a swamp.

[asthmaticeog]

16. "a sump pump is the pump that pumps from the sump"

Strange, but I'd really love to hear KRS-1 say that.

[Rabrrrrrr]

17. KRS-1? What/Who is that?

It is quite a sentence, isn't it?

[asthmaticeog]

19. Rapper. Boogie Down Productions. Great Shit. n/t

[oneighty]

13. Sump

is a designed hole in the floor of one's cellar located so that water leaking into the basement flows into it. A pump (sump pump) turned on and off automatically by the water level in the (sump) pumps the water out of the cellar.

In our house the pump is called a bilge pump because I am a sailor.

180

[Dogmudgeon]

14. I'm suprised

... that it hasn't become a slang term yet.

--p!