cloaca
Americannoun
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Zoology.
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the common cavity into which the intestinal, urinary, and generative canals open in birds, reptiles, amphibians, many fishes, and certain mammals.
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a similar cavity in invertebrates.
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a sewer, especially an ancient sewer.
noun
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a cavity in the pelvic region of most vertebrates, except higher mammals, and certain invertebrates, into which the alimentary canal and the genital and urinary ducts open
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a sewer
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Etymology
Origin of cloaca
1650–60; < Latin clo ( u ) āca, cluāca sewer, drain; probably akin to Greek klýzein to wash, wash away
Vocabulary lists containing cloaca
Ancient Rome - Middle School and High School
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Animals (Zoology) - High School
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
They transform some of those same nitrogen-based compounds into solids known as "urates," which are expelled through a shared opening called the cloaca.
From Science Daily • Oct. 25, 2025
As the researchers report today in Science, mom released a white substance from her cloaca, which her young immediately gobbled up.
From Science Magazine • Mar. 6, 2024
It can “breathe” through its cloaca if it needs to.
From NewsForKids.net • Feb. 6, 2024
Instead they have a single orifice called a cloaca that is used for defecation as well as reproduction in both males and females.
From Scientific American • Feb. 16, 2023
That unworthy work must be done by the chancellor and such others as were ready to paddle in the cloaca.
From My Lords of Strogue Vol. III, (of III) A Chronicle of Ireland, from the Convention to the Union by Wingfield, Lewis
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
