Also 6 kenell, 6–7 kennell. [Later form of CANNEL sb.1 (q.v.); for the vowel, cf. ketch, keg, kedge, etc., from catch, cag, cadge, etc.] The surface drain of a street; the gutter: = CANNEL sb.1 2.
1582. Stanyhurst, Æneis, II. (Arb.), 55. Thee streets and kennels are with slayne carcases heaped.
1607. Rowlands, Diog. Lanth. (1631), A iv. Nay Ile goe low enough to the kennell, thou shalt not iustle me for the wall.
1608–33. Bp. Hall, Medit. & Vows, § 103. A Scavenger working in the Kennel.
1764. Harmer, Observ., XII. i. 35. Having no kennels in the streets to carry off the water, it was ancle-deep.
1879. G. Macdonald, Sir Gibbie, I. i. 2. Raking with both hands in the grey dirt of the kennel.
fig. 1637. R. Humphrey, trans. St. Ambrose, Pref. I will rake no deeper into this kennell.
1678. Yng. Mans Call., 317. Sometime thou wert the beautiful image of God, but now the stinking and filthy kennel of Satan.
1847. Lewes, Hist. Philos. (1867), II. 97. Descending into the kennel of obscenity and buffoonery.
b. attrib. and Comb., as kennel sink, water; kennel-muddy adj.; kennel-brow, the top of the sloping side of a gutter; kennel-dash, a splash from the gutter; kennel-nymph, a girl of the streets; † kennel wits, muddy brains. Also KENNEL-RAKER.
1761. Lond. Mag., XXX. 17. The step … with a pebble or two standing up in the *kennel-brow before, would secure the posts from being moved.
1731. Gentl. Mag., I. 332/1. To walk through Rag Fair in Dirty Weather…; a jostle in one place, a slip in another, a slop in a third, a *Kennel-dash in a fourth.
1607. Walkington, Opt. Glass, 8 b. *Kennel muddy thoughts.
1771. Smollett, Humph. Cl., 10 June, Let. i. He … indulged himself … with one of the *kennel-nymphs.
1599. Marston, Sco. Villanie, I. ii. 176. The *kennell sincke of slaues.
1707. Curios. in Husb. & Gard., 268. Horse-dung, and *Kennel-Water, contribute beyond all belief to the forwarding of Plants.
1598. E. Gilpin, Skial. (1878), 5. That men should haue such *kennel wits To thinke so well of a scald railing vaine.
Hence (nonce-wds.) † Kennelage [cf. drainage] a system of kennels, gutters collectively; Kennelled a., lying in the gutter; Kennelly a., such as is found in a kennel or gutter.
1612. Sturtevant, Metallica, 92. Kennellage is one of the chiefe kinds of Pipeage which passeth and voydeth away the stincking and filthy waters of citties and townes.
1794. Coleridge, To the Nightingale, ‘Sister of love-lorn Poets.’ They … Mark the faint Lamp-beam on the Kennell’d mud.
1803. Sir R. T. Wilson, Brit. Exp. Egypt, 63. The miraculous qualities of the river [Nile] … the luxuries which the very kennelly waters would afford.
