Waterpipes

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Conduits designed to transport water for domestic, agricultural, or industrial use; devices that deliver smoke by channeling it through water to cool and filter it before inhalation; hollow tubes in plumbing systems used to circulate or remove water efficiently
2. Tubes used to carry water in plumbing and irrigation systems; apparatuses for smoking substances where the smoke is drawn through water to reduce harshness; cylindrical pipes installed to distribute or drain water within various infrastructures
3. Hollow cylinders primarily intended to convey water for consumption, irrigation, or drainage; smoking instruments that pass smoke through water to filter impurities; pipes forming part of systems for moving water to and from different locations

Etymology: "Waterpipes" is simply the plural of "waterpipe," so its story is the story of its parts. "Water" is an ancient inherited word, while "pipe" came into English from Old English "pipe," itself drawn from Latin "pipare," a term for chirping or piping sounds, which is why a tube and a whistle share a root. A "waterpipe" is therefore a pipe that carries water, and the plural simply counts several of them. The compound is transparent in its literal sense, and the same name covers both the conduits that move water through cities and fields and the smoking device in which smoke is drawn through a water chamber. The second sense is a plain extension of the first, since the defining feature is the water that the smoke passes through before it reaches the smoker.

Synonyms: hookah, shisha, bong, smoking pipe, narghile