Definition of "plumbing" []

• The pipes, fixtures, and other apparatus of a water, gas, or sewage system in a building. (noun)
• The work or trade of a plumber. (noun)
• Informal An arrangement of bodily vessels or ducts: "treating stroke victims by reversing the plumbing of the body's circulatory system” ( Associated Press). (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "A soft, heavy metal that has been used since antiquity (the word "plumbing" comes from the Latin word for lead, plumbum), lead had its heyday in the USA from the 1920s to the 1970s."
• "The society which scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity, and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because philosophy is an exalted activity, will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy."
• "The word plumbing came from the Latin word plumbum which means lead."