stovepipe

Meanings

1. Sheet-metal tubing used as a chimney for a stove or furnace.
2. A channel for information which is compartmentalized in such a manner that some parties who might be interested in its use or able to make use of it are restricted from accessing it.
3. A stovepipe hat.
4. A type of malfunction affecting breechloading firearms, where a spent cartridge casing fails to eject completely, instead becoming stuck in the firearm's ejection port, usually oriented vertically or nearly so.
5. A trench mortar such as the Stokes mortar.

1. To collect or store (information) in a compartmentalized manner, so that some parties who might be interested in its use or able to make use of it are restricted from accessing it.
2. Of a cartridge case, to become wedged vertically in the ejection port of a breechloading firearm, rather than ejecting completely from the weapon.

Etymology

From stove + pipe. The firearms sense is due to the trapped cartridge case resembling a stovepipe of the stove sense.