Also 7 venteduct. [f. L. venti-, ventus wind + duct-us a conducting.]
1. A pipe or passage serving to bring cool or fresh air into an apartment or place, esp. in Italy and other warm climates.
1615. G. Sandys, Trav., 261. Cold winds … such as by venteducts from the vast caues aboue Padua they let into their roomes at their pleasure.
1660. Boyle, New Exp. Phys.-Mech., 173. I have been informed of divers Ventiducts (as they call them) by very knowing Travellers that have observ’d them.
1685. Cotton, trans. Montaigne, III. 320. I would fain know what pain it was to the Persians … to make such ventiducts … as Xenophon reports they did.
1702. Floyer, Cold Baths, I. iv. (1709), 108. They stop their Sweats, unseasonably by Cold Air, by Fanning, Ventiducts, or Cold Baths.
1715. Leoni, Palladio’s Archit. (1742), I. 33. From these Caves arise extreme cold Winds … through certain subterranean Vaults, named … Ventiducts: and … through all the Chambers … these Wind-Pipes, or Ventiducts, are discharg’d.
[1818. Southey, in Q. Rev., XIX. 18 (copying Evelyn, Acetaria, II. xi.). His scheme of a Royal Garden comprehended … precipices and ventiducts.]
1884. Health Exhib. Catal., 106/1. Ventiduct, to bring in fresh air without dust or fog.
fig. 1652. Benlowes, Theoph., XII. cxvii. Th’ herb [sc. tobacco] that cramp and tooth-ache drives away,… whose pipe’s both ventiduct and stove.
a. 1658. Cleveland, News from Newcastle, 52. What need we baths? What need we bower, or grove? A Coal-pit’s both a Ventiduct and Stove.
b. A conduit for the passage of wind, air or steam.
1685. Phil. Trans., XV. 922. I … discover’d in severall dry places of the ground thereabouts, many little Ventiducts, passages, or clefts, where the Steam issued forth.
1725. J. Reynolds, View of Death (1735), 23. This channel is called by … the English miners the drift; by Mr. Boyle, the ventiduct.
1843. in C. Morfit, Tanning & Currying (1853), 177. A ventiduct, made of plank,… should extend from the centre.
transf. 1876. Mrs. Whitney, Sights & Ins., II. xvi. 458. From these cold, dark ventiducts [i.e., thoroughfares] you may come out suddenly upon a bright warm corner of an open square.
2. attrib. Of a hat: = VENTILATORY a.
1862. Catal. Internat. Exhib., Brit., II. No. 4808. Patent corrugated ventiduct hat.
