Word.ws English Dictionary

debouch

/dɪˈbuːʃ/

debouch noun: a narrow outlet from which a body of water pours.

Noun

debouch (plural debouches)

  1. A narrow outlet from which a body of water pours.
    • In level portions of the country vertical shafts are preferred, but where the mine is situated upon a hill a debouch may often be found below the sulphur seam, ...1888 May 26, Phillip Carroll, “Sulphur Mines in Sicily”, in Scientific American Supplement, number 647
  2. A fortress at the end of a defile.
    • To prevent another demonstration of this character, and to insure a debouch on the south bank of the James, it became necessary to occupy Coggin's Point, which was done on the 3d, and the enemy driven back towards Petersburg.1887, George B. McClellan, McClellan's Own Story

Verb

debouch (third-person singular simple present debouches, present participle debouching, simple past and past participle debouched)

  1. (intransitive) To pour forth from a narrow opening; to emerge from a narrow place like a defile into open country or a wider space.
    • The pretty pimpled young man, no longer a boy, came down from the imperial box in his purple to the performers’ well which debouched into the arena.1985, Anthony Burgess, Kingdom of the Wicked
    • Ungrateful brats debouch from their cheap holiday in someone else’s misery and their tired parents try desperately to summon up joy out of indifference.1993, Will Self, My Idea of Fun
    Synonyms:
    disembogue

Synonyms of debouch

Forms of debouch

Noun
pluraldebouches
Verb
third-person singular presentdebouches
present participledebouching
past participledebouched
pastdebouched

Origin of debouch

From French déboucher (de + bouche (“mouth”)), modelled on Italian sboccare.

Words formed from debouch

Questions about debouch

What does debouch mean?
Debouch means a narrow outlet from which a body of water pours.
What part of speech is debouch?
Debouch can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce debouch?
Debouch is pronounced /dɪˈbuːʃ/.
What is the plural of debouch?
The plural of debouch is debouches.

Words near debouch in the dictionary

  1. debossing
  2. debottleneck
  3. debottlenecked
  4. debottlenecking
  5. debottlenecks
  6. debouch
  7. debouche
  8. debouched
  9. debouchement
  10. debouchements
  11. debouches

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: debouch (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “debouch.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/debouch. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.