adit

noun

1. A horizontal or nearly horizontal passage from the surface into a mine, as contrasted with a shaft or vertical entry passage, used for ventilation, haulage, drainage, or other purposes.

   “A narrow and untrodden cavern at the bottom connects it with the outer sea; they could even then hear the mysterious thunder and gurgle of the surge in the subterranean adit, as it rolled huge boulders to and fro in darkness, and forced before it gusts of pent-up air.”

   “What all these passages are, of course I cannot say, but we thought that they must be the ancient workings of a mine, of which the various shafts and adits travelled hither and thither as the ore led them.”

   “It consisted of an opening in the forest which clothed the hillside with the black mouth of an adit in the midst of it, and a few big mounds of debris, beside which stood a rude log shanty.”

   “The Old Mine is currently entered through an upper adit as the main is no longer accessible.”

   “The adit sloped downwards into the bowels of some long-fallen building, following a passage that had silted up when the city had first been buried.”

name

1. A diminutive of the male given name Aditya, from Sanskrit.