stove pipe
v.— «“There are a lot of data processing systems out on Navy bases and stations,” he said. “But they’re, for lack of a better word, stove-pipe systems that found one specific application and solved that problem very efficiently.”» —“A review is last hurdle for BASIS” by Brad Bass Government Computer News June 5, 1987. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
What if, instead of being an inanimate object, a dictionary were alive? That’s the idea behind a lavishly illustrated new children’s book called The Dictionary Story (Bookshop|Amazon) by Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston. This is part of a...