cistern

«cistern» in Mova's school dictionary: The tank above or behind a toilet that holds water for… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 1 sentence of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun (cistern, cisterns)

meaning for a pupil

1) The tank above or behind a toilet that holds water for flushing. tree →

2) A tank, often in the loft or under the ground, that stores water for a house or building. tree →

3) In old times and dry places, a large underground pool or tank for collecting rainwater. tree →

sense in the lessons

In everyday life the cistern is the part of the toilet that fills after you flush; plumbers fix «a leaking cistern». In science and geography it connects to water storage and saving rainwater in dry countries. In history, ancient cities such as Istanbul had huge underground cisterns. Phrases: «toilet cistern», «cold-water cistern», «the cistern is refilling».

examples

• The toilet will not flush until the cistern fills up again. tree →
• Dad lifted the lid of the cistern to fix the chain. tree →
• The cold-water cistern is up in the loft. tree →
• The ancient city kept rainwater in a great stone cistern. tree →
• We visited a huge underground cistern with hundreds of columns. tree →
• Water dripped from the cistern all night. tree →
• On the farm, a cistern collects rain from the roof. tree →

note

Countable: one cistern, two cisterns. Do not confuse with «sister» or «system». A cistern stores water; a «tank» is a more general word. In maths problems a cistern is often the container being filled or emptied: if a pipe fills it at 5 litres a minute, a 60-litre cistern takes 12 minutes.

In the corpora

• Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «cistern» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.