chute

1 rescue equipment consisting of a device that fills with air and retards your fall [syn: parachute]

2 sloping channel through which things can descend [syn: slide, slideway, sloping trough]

English

Pronunciation

• Homophones: shoot

  Rhymes: -uːt

Etymology

From chute.

Noun

1. A framework, trough, or tube, upon or through which objects are made to slide from a higher to a lower level, or through which water passes to a wheel.
2. parachute

Translations

• Finnish: kouru
• French: tobogan

French

Pronunciation

Homophones

• chut

Etymology

Noun

fr-noun m

1. a fall

   Sa chute lui a été fatale.

2. une chute d'eau (a waterfall) (see also: cascade)

   Nous ne sommes plus très loins des chutes du Niagara.

3. la chute de l'empire

A chute is a vertical or inclined path, channel, or passage through which objects are moved by means of gravity. Chutes may be round, square or rectangular at the top and/or the bottom.

Building chute

Chutes are in common use in buildings to allow the rapid transport of items from one location inside a building to another. There can be a concrete lined chute or unlined chute.

For example, laundry chutes in hotels are placed on each floor to allow the expedient transfer and collection of dirty laundry to the hotel's laundry facility without having to use elevators. In popular culture stories, laundry chutes are commonly used as means for the protagonist to quickly escape.

Garbage chutes are common in high-rise apartment buildings and are used to collect all the building's garbage in the one place. Often the bottom end of the chute is placed directly above a large waste receptacle. This makes garbage collection more efficient and hygienic.

Escape chutes are used and proposed for use in evacuation of mining equipment and high-rise buildings.http://www.ingstromescapechute.com.auhttp://www.lifechute.com/index2.html

An elevator is not a chute since it does not operate by means of gravity.

Chutes in transportation

Chutes are also found in:

1. Hopper cars
2. Hopper barges

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