powder room

English

Etymology

In reference to lavatories, an indirection developed under the influence of powder one's nose (“euphemism for use a toilet”). Compare boudoir.

Pronunciation

• Audio (US):

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Noun

powder room (plural powder rooms)

1. (originally US, euphemistic) Synonym of ladies' room: a lavatory intended for use by women.

   Synonyms: powder closet; see also Thesaurus:bathroom

   If you'll excuse me, I need to visit the powder room to see a man about a dog.

   • 1927, E.A. Park, chapter IX, in New Backgrounds for a New Age, page 173:

     They are the authors of the small powder room in the Hofbrau House at Broadway and Fifty-third Street, New York, a very modern creation.

   • 1957 April, “British Railways Prototype Coaches”, in Railway Magazine, page 243:

     There are separate lavatories for ladies and gentlemen in each coach and the provision of a special powder room for ladies in the first class is an entirely new feature.

   • 1988, Womack & Womack, “Teardrops”:

     Whispers in the powder room / She cries on every tune

2. (euphemistic) Synonym of half bath: a small room with a toilet and sink but no bathtub or shower.
   • 2025 October 28, Vivian Marino, “Lily Allen and David Harbour List Their Brooklyn Brownstone”, in The New York Times‎^[1], New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC:

     The house — four stories high and 22 feet wide — has five bedrooms, three full bathrooms and a powder room, along with three fireplaces and a finished basement with a gym and laundry.

     (Can we archive this URL?)

3. A room used to store gunpowder, particularly (historical) on a ship equipped with cannon.

   Synonym: powder magazine

   Are you insane? Don't take a candle into the powder room!

   • 1837, Thomas Carlyle, “To Finish the Terror”, in The French Revolution: A History […], volume III (The Guillotine), London: James Fraser, […], →OCLC, book VI (Thermidor):

     Mutiny is a thing of the fatallest nature in all enterprises whatsoever; a thing so incalculable, swift-frightful; not to be dealt with in fright. But mutiny in a Robespierre Convention, above all,—it is like fire seen sputtering in the ship’s powder-room!

4. (historical) A room used to powder hair and wigs.

Related terms

• powder one's nose
• take a powder

Translations

ladies room

• Bulgarian: дамска тоалетна (damska toaletna)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 化妝室 / 化妆室 (zh) (huàzhuāngshì)

• German: Toilette (de) f, Badezimmer (de) n

room to store powder

• German: Pulverkammer (de) f

References

• "powder room, n.", in the Oxford English Dictionary (2006), Oxford: Oxford University Press.