have your tubes tied

tube | American Dictionary

tube
noun
us/tub/

tubenoun (PIPE)

[ C ]
a long, hollow cylinder of plastic, metal, rubber, or glass, used for moving or containing liquids or gases:
a copper tube
She lay in the hospital, tubes going in and out of her.
[ C ]
A tube is also one of the body’s hollow cylindrical structures that carries air or liquid:
bronchial tubes

tubenoun (CONTAINER)

[ C ]
a cylindrical container made of soft metal or plastic which is closed at one end and has a small opening at the other, usually with a cover, and is used for holding thick liquids:
a tube of toothpaste/ointment

tubenoun (TELEVISION)

[ U ]infml
television:
What’s on the tube tonight?

the Tube | Business English

the Tube
noun[ S ]
 TRANSPORT trademarkUKinformal(alsothe Tube)ukus
the London Underground: the system of trains that run under the ground there:
Let's get the Tube.
It's quickest to go by Tube.
We decided to meet at Oxford Street Tube station.
 go down the tubesinformal
to fail completely:
If sales don't get better soon, the company will go down the tubes.

Examples of tube

tube
In a strict sense, there is nothing passive about removing a surgically implanted feeding tube or extubating a patient undergoing mechanical ventilation.
But in case the supply of tubes is insufficient they should be transferred, as caught, into any dry bottle, such as a whisky bottle.
Eggs were counted after 24 h, at which time the female was transferred to a fresh tube.
Study of the membrane effect on turbulent mixing measurements in shock tubes.
Again, this means that it is unlikely for spermatozoa to reach the uterine tube after the arrival of the oocyte.
The shape of the bubble can be easily controlled in a vertical shock tube either with a soap-film-surrounded gaseous bubble or a gelatin-solid bubble.
Enteral feeding tubes are often used in this situation, yet benefits and risks of thistherapy are unclear.
Seventeen of the 99 patients were admitted with a feeding tube in place and half received a new feeding tube.
The airstream directs the pollen up a tube having openings, at several different points along its length, through which the pollen is dispersed.
Having examined unto them, however, he invariably finds them real and fights them with pseudo-kabbalistic spells, a rubber outfit, and dangerously overloaded vacuum tubes.
Approximately every sixth day, an exchange of the membrane oxygenators and tubes is necessary because of plasma leakage or loss of function.
The inner-tube domains appear to be more globular than the outer-tube domains.
A tube sorbent was plugged between a 'plant chamber' and an 'odour chamber' of a dual choice arena.
As the stretched tube moves downstream, the tilting becomes more pronounced with increasing time.
The elastic girder deforms differently when a different diameter tube is measured, thus resulting in a different output of the strain gauge transducer.
See all examples of tube
These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.

Collocations withtube

tube

These are words often used in combination with tube.

Click on a collocation to see more examples of it.

boiler tube
The reactor was again shut down, and the moisture traced to a leaking boilertube.
From the
Hansard archive