[1] : The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48

plumb \plumb\, v. t. imp.  p. p. plumbed plu^md; p. pr.
    vb. n. plumbing plu^m"i^ng.
   1. to adjust by a plumb line; to cause to be perpendicular;
      as, to plumb a building or a wall.
      1913 webster

   2. to sound with a plumb or plummet, as the depth of water;
      hence, to examine by test; to ascertain the depth,
      quality, dimension, etc.; to sound; to fathom; to test.
      1913 webster

            he did not attempt to plumb his intellect. --ld.
                                                  lytton.
      1913 webster

   3. to seal with lead; as, to plumb a drainpipe.
      1913 webster

   4. to supply, as a building, with a system of plumbing.
      1913 webster
see also:
plumbed plumbing 

[2] : The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48

plumbing \plumb"ing\, n.
   1. the art of casting and working in lead, and applying it to
      building purposes; especially, the business of furnishing,
      fitting, and repairing pipes for conducting water, sewage,
      etc. --gwilt.
      1913 webster

   2. the lead or iron pipes, and other apparatus, used in
      conveying water, sewage, etc., in a building.
      1913 webster

[3] : WordNet (r) 2.0

plumbing
     n 1: utility consisting of the pipes and fixtures for the
          distribution of water or gas in a building and for the
          disposal of sewage syn: plumbing system
     2: the occupation of a plumber installing and repairing pipes
        and fixtures for water or gas or sewage in a building
        syn: plumbery
     3: measuring the depths of the oceans syn: bathymetry
see also:
plumbing system plumbery bathymetry 

[4] : Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0

33 moby thesaurus words for "plumbing":
   accouterments, apparatus, appliances, appointments, appurtenances,
   armament, conveniences, duffel, equipage, equipment, facilities,
   facility, fittings, fixtures, furnishings, furniture, gear,
   impedimenta, installations, kit, machinery, materiel, munition,
   munitions, outfit, paraphernalia, plant, rig, rigging,
   stock-in-trade, tackle, things, utensils

[5] : Jargon File (4.3.1, 29 Jun 2001)

plumbing n. unix term used for shell code, so called because of the
   prevalence of `pipelines' that feed the output of one program to the
   input of another. under unix, user utilities can often be implemented or
   at least prototyped by a suitable collection of pipelines and temp-file
   grinding encapsulated in a shell script; this is much less effort than
   writing c every time, and the capability is considered one of unix's
   major winning features. a few other oss such as ibm's vm/cms support
   similar facilities. esp. used in the construction `hairy plumbing' see
   hairy. "you can kluge together a basic spell-checker out of
   `sort1', `comm1', and `tr1' with a little plumbing." see also
   tee.


see also:
shell hairy tee 

[6] : The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03)

plumbing
     
        unix term used for shell code, so called because of the
        prevalence of "pipelines" that feed the output of one
        program to the input of another.  under unix, user utilities
        can often be implemented or at least prototyped by a suitable
        collection of pipelines and temporary file grinding
        encapsulated in a shell script.  this is much less effort
        than writing c every time, and the capability is considered
        one of unix's major winning features.  a few other operating
        systems such as ibm's vm/cms support similar facilities.
     
        the tee utility is specifically designed for plumbing.
     
        jargon file
     
        1995-02-23
     
     
see also:
shell pipeline unix grind shell script c 
operating system ibm vm/cms tee jargon file 

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