Tunnel vs. Culvert — What's the Difference?

A tunnel is an underground passageway, dug through the surrounding soil/earth/rock and enclosed except for entrance and exit, commonly at each end. A pipeline is not a tunnel, though some recent tunnels have used immersed tube construction techniques rather than traditional tunnel boring methods.

A culvert is a structure that allows water to flow under a road, railroad, trail, or similar obstruction from one side to the other. Typically embedded so as to be surrounded by soil, a culvert may be made from a pipe, reinforced concrete or other material.

An artificial underground passage, especially one built through a hill or under a building, road, or river

A tunnel carrying a stream or open drain under a road or railway.

Short for wind tunnel

Channel (a stream or drain) through a culvert

A long, half-cylindrical enclosure used to protect plants, made of clear plastic stretched over hoops

A sewer or drain crossing under a road or embankment.

Dig or force a passage underground or through something

The part of a road or embankment that passes over such a sewer or drain.

(of a particle) pass through a potential barrier.

The channel or conduit for such a sewer or drain.

An underground or underwater passage.

A channel crossing under a road or railway for the draining of water.

A passage through or under a barrier such as a mountain.

To channel (a stream of water) through a culvert.

A tube-shaped structure.

A transverse drain or waterway of masonry under a road, railroad, canal, etc.; a small bridge.

To make a tunnel through or under

A transverse and totally enclosed drain under a road or railway

To produce, shape, or dig in the form of a tunnel

To make a tunnel.

An underground or underwater passage.

A passage through or under some obstacle.

A hole in the ground made by an animal, a burrow.

A wrapper for a protocol that cannot otherwise be used because it is unsupported, blocked, or insecure.

A vessel with a broad mouth at one end, a pipe or tube at the other, for conveying liquor, fluids, etc., into casks, bottles, or other vessels; a funnel.

The opening of a chimney for the passage of smoke; a flue.

(mining) A level passage driven across the measures, or at right angles to veins which it is desired to reach; distinguished from the drift, or gangway, which is led along the vein when reached by the tunnel.

(figurative) Anything that resembles a tunnel.

(transitive) To make a tunnel through or under something; to burrow.

(intransitive) To dig a tunnel.

To transmit something through a tunnel (wrapper for insecure or unsupported protocol).

To insert a catheter into a vein to allow long-term use.

(physics) To undergo the quantum-mechanical phenomenon where a particle penetrates through a barrier that it classically cannot surmount.

A vessel with a broad mouth at one end, and a pipe or tube at the other, for conveying liquor, fluids, etc., into casks, bottles, or other vessels; a funnel.

The opening of a chimney for the passage of smoke; a flue; a funnel.

An artificial passage or archway for conducting canals, roads, or railroads under elevated ground, for the formation of roads under rivers or canals, and the construction of sewers, drains, and the like.

A level passage driven across the measures, or at right angles to veins which it is desired to reach; - distinguished from the drift, or gangway, which is led along the vein when reached by the tunnel.

To form into a tunnel, or funnel, or to form like a tunnel; as, to tunnel fibrous plants into nests.

To catch in a tunnel net.

To make an opening, or a passageway, through or under; as, to tunnel a mountain; to tunnel a river.

To make a tunnel; as, to tunnel under a river.

A passageway through or under something, usually underground (especially one for trains or cars);

A hole in the ground made by an animal for shelter

Move through by or as by digging;

Force a way through