cesspool

[ses-pool] /ˈsɛsˌpul/
noun
1.
a cistern, well, or pit for retaining the sediment of a drain or for receiving the sewage from a house.
2.
any filthy receptacle or place.
3.
any place of moral filth or immorality:
a cesspool of iniquity.
Origin
1575-85; cess (< Italian cesso privy < Latin rēcessus recess, place of retirement) + pool1
Examples from the web for cesspool
  • The judicial system has nothing to do with why family law is universally considered a cesspool practice area.
  • Yes, he had been warned about his cesspool of an office.
  • The sooner we're out of that wretched cesspool of continental inefficiency the better.
  • However, the country is not the cesspool that this magazine makes it out to be week after week.
  • It's not much of a life revelling inside a clogged cesspool.
  • Time to move on while the stray dogs filled with inferiority complex bark pointlessly and the forum degenerates into a cesspool.
  • Objects were unearthed from backyards, fished out of a cesspool, recovered in pre-dawn raids.
  • Any cesspool used at one of these facilities must be closed.
  • The cesspool was lined with cinder blocks, and had a concrete cover.
  • In older homes, a septic system may be a pipe leading from the house to a cesspool.
British Dictionary definitions for cesspool

cesspool

/ˈsɛsˌpuːl/
noun
1.
Also called sink, sump. a covered cistern, etc, for collecting and storing sewage or waste water
2.
a filthy or corrupt place: a cesspool of iniquity
Word Origin
C17: changed (through influence of pool1) from earlier cesperalle, from Old French souspirail vent, air, from soupirer to sigh; see suspire
Word Origin and History for cesspool
n.

also cess-pool, 1670s, the first element perhaps an alteration of cistern, perhaps a shortened form of recess [Klein]; or the whole may be an alteration of suspiral (c.1400), "drainpipe," from Old French sospiral "a vent, air hole," from sospirer "breathe," from Latin suspirare "breathe deep" [Barnhart]. Meaning extended to "tank at the end of the pipe," which would account for a possible folk-etymology change in final syllable.

Other possible etymologies: Italian cesso "privy," from Latin secessus "place of retirement" (in Late Latin "privy, drain"); dialectal suspool, from suss, soss "puddle;" or cess "a bog on the banks of a tidal river."