ETYM Latin.
1. A sewer.
2. A privy.
3. The common chamber into which the intestinal, urinary, and generative canals discharge in birds, reptiles, amphibians, and many fishes.
Sewer; toilet; cesspool of moral filth.
Sewer; watercloset; Zoology, passage or chamber receiving all bodily excretions in birds, reptiles, etc.
The common posterior chamber of most vertebrates into which the digestive, urinary, and reproductive tracts all enter; a cloaca is found in most reptiles, birds, and amphibians; many fishes; and, to a reduced degree, marsupial mammals. Placental mammals, however, have a separate digestive opening (the anus) and urinogenital opening. The cloaca forms a chamber in which products can be stored before being voided from the body via a muscular opening, the cloacal aperture.