Dictionary

airhole en · NOUN

Etymology

From air + hole.

Meanings

1. A hole provided for ventilation or breathing.
   • The youngest son, Vardaman, is unable to cope with Addie's death and drills airholes in her coffin (and accidentally into her head) and insistently declares, "My mother is a fish"--like the big one he recently caught and gutted. 1995 July 14, Albert Williams, “Words First”, in Chicago Reader:
   • "This wall is badly built," he went on in a careless tone; "look, there is another space there at the back;" and he actually came up to it and held the lantern close to the airhole in such fashion that its light shone through into Jess's eyes and nearly blinded her. 1887, H. Rider Haggard, Jess:
   • For if they touch one another, and so do not leave airholes and admit draughts of air to blow between them, they get heated and soon begin to rot. 1914, Morris Hicky Morgan, Ten Books on Architecture:
2. A hole in ice through which air escapes.
   • "Even if it is hard enough, there may be airholes around." 1914, Arthur M. Winfield, The Rover Boys in Alaska:
   • Through these and through countless airholes, the water began to sweep across the surface of the ice, and by the time he pulled into a woodchopper's cabin on the point of an island, the dogs were being rushed off their feet and were swimming more often than not. 1901, Jack London, The God of His Fathers:
3. An air pocket.

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