Plumbing

How to spell plumbing

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce plumbing

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does plumbing mean?

1. nounThe system of pipes, fittings and fixtures that carry water and waste through a building.
2. nounThe trade or work of installing and repairing water pipes and fittings.

Plumbing in a sentence

• The old house needs new plumbing throughout the kitchen and bathroom.

• He studied plumbing at the local college before starting his own business.

• A burst pipe revealed how corroded the plumbing had become.

• Good plumbing requires both careful measurement and steady hands.

Where does plumbing come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin plumbum, which simply meant 'lead', the soft heavy metal. Because the Romans built their water systems from lead pipes, the word for the metal became attached to the trade of fitting and maintaining those pipes. English took it in through Old French as 'plumb', the lead weight on a line, and the worker who handled lead pipes became a 'plumber'. The activity and the system of pipes then naturally became 'plumbing'. The silent 'b' that trips so many writers is the fingerprint of that Latin plumbum, preserved in spelling long after it stopped being pronounced; the same hidden lead survives in 'plumb', 'plummet' and the chemical symbol Pb.

How the word is built

• plumb (from Latin plumbum: lead)
• -ing (noun/gerund suffix)