A drain is the primary vessel or conduit for unwanted water or waste liquids to flow away, either to a more useful area, funnelled into a receptacle, or run into sewers or stormwater mains as waste discharge to be released or processed.
Most commonly found at the bottom of sinks and bathtubs across the globe, a drain is the hole through which water is carried away. If it rains on the day you decided to go to the beach, you could say your plans went right "down the drain."
The meaning of DRAIN is to draw off (liquid) gradually or completely. How to use drain in a sentence. Synonym Discussion of Drain.
If you drain something, you remove the liquid from it, usually by pouring it away or allowing it to flow away, and if something drains, liquid flows away or out of it:
To or into the condition of being wasted or lost: All of our best laid plans are down the drain.
If you say that something is a drain on an organization's finances or resources, you mean that it costs the organization a large amount of money, and you do not consider that it is worth it.
An independent candidate could drain off [= siphon off] votes from either party.
Some common synonyms of drain are bankrupt, deplete, exhaust, and impoverish. While all these words mean "to deprive of something essential to existence or potency," drain implies a gradual withdrawal and ultimate deprivation of what is necessary to an existence.