debouchment

[ dih-boosh-muhnt, -bouch- ]

noun

1. an act or instance of debouching.
2. Also de·bou·chure [] Physical Geography. a mouth or outlet, as of a river or pass.

Word History and Origins

Origin of debouchment¹

From the French word débouchement, dating back to 1820–30. See debouch, -ment

Example Sentences

Residents and city-government officials prepared for the rains by placing sandbags along the Pacific Coast Highway and at the mouths of canyons—likely sites of ruinous debouchment.

From The New Yorker

The yearly rainfall, which amounts to between 60 and 70 in. in the delta of the Ganges, is reduced to about 40 in. when that river issues from the mountains, and diminishes to 30 in. at the debouchment of the Indus into the plains.

From Project Gutenberg

Following the lane of S. Stefano Rotondo—skirted by broken fragments of Nero's aqueduct—almost to its debouchment near St. J. Lateran, and then turning to the left, we reach the quaint fortress like church and convent of the Santi Quattro Incoronati crowned by a stumpy campanile of 1112.

From Project Gutenberg

They find it steep as a staircase, though not winding as one; instead, trending straight up from its debouchment on the plain to the summit level, between slopes, these with grim, rocky façade, still more precipitous.

From Project Gutenberg

The site of the city is a diversified surface, with the river whose name it bears winding gracefully through it about twenty-five miles from its mouth; though in a direct line it would be but half that distance to its debouchment into Moreton Bay, one of the largest bays on the coast of Australia.

From Project Gutenberg