(verb) – To make dry; to draw off water; to rid land of its superfluous moisture by adapting or improving natural watercourses and supplementing them, when necessary, by artificial ditches. People v. Tarks, 58 Cal. 639.
(noun) – A trench or ditch to convey water from wet land; a channel through which water may flow off. The word has no technical legal meaning. Any hollow space in the ground, natural or artificial, where water is collected and passes off, is a ditch or drain. Goldthwait v. East Bridgewater, 5 Gray (Mass.) 61. The word “drain” also sometimes denotes the easement or servitude (acquired by grant or prescription) which consists in the right to drain water through another’s land. See 3 Kent, Comm. 436.