manhole

English

A manhole cover in Twickenham, Greater London

Alternative forms

• man hole
• man-hole

Etymology

From man +‎ hole.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /mænhəʊl/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Noun

manhole (plural manholes)

1. A hole in the ground used to access the sewers or other underground vaults and installations.
   • 1936, Robert Frost, “The Vindictives”, in A Further Range:

     The king had scarce ceased to writhe,
     When hate gave a terrible laugh,
     Like a manhole opened to Hell.

2. A hole providing access to the inside of a boiler, tank etc.
3. (informal) The anus of man, in a sexual context.
   • For quotations using this term, see Citations:manhole.
4. (LGBTQ) The vulva or vagina of a trans man.

Usage notes

• In contexts such as government documents where gendered terms are avoided, this has mostly been replaced by maintenance hole.

Derived terms

• manhole cover
• throw nickels around like manhole covers

Translations

a hole in the ground used to access the sewers or other underground vaults and installations

• Armenian: մտոց (hy) (mtocʻ), լյուկ (hy) (lyuk)
• Bulgarian: шахта f (šahta)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 沙井 (zh) (shājǐng), 窨井 (zh) (yìnjǐng), 人孔 (zh) (rénkǒng)

• Dutch: mangat (nl) n
• Finnish: kulkuaukko, katukaivo
• French: regard d’égout m, trou d’homme (fr) m
• German: Mannloch (de) n, Kontrollschacht m, Einstiegsloch (de) n
• Icelandic: mannop n, mannsmuga f
• Italian: tombino (it) m
• Japanese: マンホール (manhōru), 人孔 (ja) (じんこう, jinkō)
• Korean: 맨홀 (ko) (maenhol)
• Macedonian: шахта f (šahta)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: kum m, mannhull n (also in tanks, etc.)

  Nynorsk: kum m

• Polish: właz (pl) m
• Portuguese: bueiro (pt) m, poço de visita m
• Russian: люк (ru) m (ljuk), лаз (ru) m (laz)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: шахт m

  Roman: šaht (sh) m

• Sicilian: rigana f, rijana f
• Spanish: pozo (es) m, alcantarilla (es) f, pozo de visita m, pozo registral m
• Swedish: gatubrunn c, manhål
• Tagalog: pinto sa suwelo
• Turkish: rögar (tr)
• Ukrainian: люк m (ljuk)
• Venetan: gatoło m
• Welsh: twll archwilio m

See also

• manhole on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

References

• Fielding, Lucie (2021) Trans Sex: Clinical Approaches to Trans Sexualities and Erotic Embodiments, New York: Routledge, →ISBN, page 96

Anagrams

• Holeman