mercy flush

English

Noun

mercy flush (plural mercy flushes)

1. (slang) An additional toilet flush to reduce odor or decrease the likelihood of the toilet pipes becoming clogged.
   • 1995 October 18, Doug Huffman, “Seawater in submarines”, in sci.military.naval‎^[1] (Usenet):

     A more usual problem with a hatch is that it was shut too tightly. Rig for dive checks can be done submerged, with sea pressure on the outer hatch. New JOs, doing the check, sometimes forget and shut the outer hatch even more tightly when checking it shut. Subsequently, opening the hatch on the surface can be difficult, even demanding a dive to loosen the hatch. Generally happens only once per career (kinda like a mercy flush over a pressurized sanitary tank).

   • 1998 April 18, dhuf...@awod.com, “Things S**t-Canned Over the Side <Was Of government supply depots, or...>”, in sci.military.naval‎^[2] (Usenet):

     For the cruise ship sailors among us; the stool flush ball valve has a three foot long lever positioned at the users elbow. Because of the quantity and quality of submarine food one gets into the habit of "mercy flushes" that are periodic quick pops of the flush valve open and shut (kind'a like with a 1.6 gpf commode).

   • 2008, Kate Harmon, Sorority 101, New York, N.Y.: Speak, →ISBN, page 97:

     Roni lowered her voice and whispered, "That's Taylor Britt. She's got irritable bowel syndrome that's exacerbated by stress." ¶ "That's nasty. We definitely need a mercy flush."

   • 2015, Thomas O'Malley, Douglas Graham Purdy, Serpents in the Cold, New York, N.Y. […]: Mulholland Books, →ISBN, page 81:

     The radiators thumped with steaming water, and a long stream of hissing air sounded miserably through the valves. From one of the stalls came a painful-sounding groan, and someone shouted, "For Christ's sake, give us a fucking mercy flush, would you!"

Further reading

• “mercy flush”, in Urban Dictionary, launched 1999.