Definition of "stovepipe"

stovepipe

noun
plural stovepipes
1. Sheet-metal tubing used as a chimney for a stove or furnace.
  Quotations
  On the Visby-Västerhejde Railway there is a steam car. [...] The upperworks consist of a short clerestory coach body with end platforms and the engine chimney protruding from the roof like a stovepipe.
  1939 July, “Overseas Railways: Baltic Island Railways”, in Railway Magazine, page 49
2. A channel for information which is compartmentalized in such a manner that some parties who might be interested in its use or be able to utilize it are restricted from accessing it.
3. (clothing) A stovepipe hat.
  Quotations
  I'm sure the Brunel-designed stone-built structure would have had a hatstand for his trademark stovepipe. I can picture him rocking up there of a morning and lobbing it nonchalantly onto the hatstand.
  2021 December 29, Stephen Roberts, “Stories and facts behind railway plaques: Chippenham (1841)”, in RAIL, number 947, page 57
4. (firearms) 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.
verb
third-person singular simple present stovepipes, present participle stovepiping, simple past and past participle stovepiped
1. (idiomatic) To collect or store information in a compartmentalized manner, so that some parties who might be interested in its use or ability to utilize it are restricted from accessing it.
2. (firearms) Of a cartridge case, to become wedged vertically in the ejection port of a breechloading firearm, rather than ejecting completely from the weapon.