Sewer

There are two nouns in Present-day English written as sewer. Beware any confusion.

• Sewer is perhaps more commonly used as the name for an artificial drain designed to carry off waste matter in more or less liquid form from houses and other buildings. (A sewer carries sewage.) This word is pronounced with a vowel like that in 'do-er' ('a person who does') or 'sure', rhyming with 'cure'; IPA: /ˈsuː ə^r or ˈsjuː ə^r/.
• A sewer (pronounced with a first vowel like that in 'go' and 'toe', IPA: /ˈsəʊ ə^r/) is 'a person who sews'.

Readers of literature from past centuries may also come across the word as a character in plays by Shakespeare and his contemporaries. It is listed by OED as "Now only hist[orical]", and defined as "An attendant at a meal who superintended the arrangement of the table, the seating of the guests, and the tasting and serving of the dishes." Sewers lay the table for the Banquet in Macbeth. This is pronounced rhyming with 'sure' and 'cure', IPA: /ˈsjuː ə^r/.

See also AWE's page on sewer and sower.