pipeline

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun A long pipe, especially one used for the conveyance of water, gas, or petroleum products.
• noun A channel by which information is privately transmitted.
• noun A system through which something is conducted, especially as a means of supply.
• transitive verb To convey by or as if by a system of pipes.
• transitive verb To lay a system of pipes through.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• A line of pipe with pumping machinery and apparatus for conveying liquids, gases, or finely divided solids, such as petroleum or natural gas, between distant points.
• fig. an information channel direct from the source.
• the set of stages and processes from the invention or design of a product to its ultimate use, production, or commercial sale. Used commonly in the phrase in the pipeline, i. e. still in preparation or under development.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun a conduit made of pipes used to convey water, gas or petroleum etc
• noun a channel (either physical or logical) by which information is transmitted sequentially (that is, the first information in is the first information out).
• noun a system through which something is conducted
• noun surfing : The inside of a wave that a surfer is riding, when wave has started closing over.
• verb transitive To convey something by a system of pipes
• verb transitive To lay a system of pipes through something
• verb computing, transitive To design (a microchip etc.) so that processing takes place in efficient stages, the output of each stage being fed as input to the next.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun a pipe used to transport liquids or gases
• noun gossip spread by spoken communication