toilet
English
Alternative forms
- toilette (certain senses only)
Etymology
From (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Middle French toilette (“small cloth”), diminutive of toile (“cloth”), from their use to protect clothing while shaving or arranging hair. From its use as a private room, toilet came to refer euphemistically to lavatories and then to its fixtures, beginning in the United States in the late 19th century.[1]
Pronunciation
Noun
toilet (plural toilets)
- (archaic) Personal grooming, in other words washing, dressing, etc. [from 17th c.]
- 1931, William Faulkner, Sanctuary, Vintage 1993, page 111:
- Three women got down and standing on the curb they made unabashed toilets, smoothing skirts and stockings, brushing one another's back, opening parcels and donning various finery.
- 1952, Norman Lewis, Golden Earth, Chapter 8:
- Here, at night, a lonely but brilliantly neon-illuminated figure, I performed my toilet, watched incuriously by the Burmese seated at the tables of the tea-shops below.
- 1931, William Faulkner, Sanctuary, Vintage 1993, page 111:
- (now rare) One's style of dressing: dress, outfit. [from 18th c.]
- 1871, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter I, in Middlemarch […], volume I, Edinburgh, London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, book I, page 25:
- It is so painful in you, Celia, that you will look at human beings as if they were merely animals with a toilette, and never see the great soul in a man's face.
- 1917, Arthur Conan Doyle, "The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge":
- "It is a quarter-past two," he said. "Your telegram was dispatched about one. But no one can glance at your toilet and attire without seeing that your disturbance dates from the moment of your waking."
- (archaic) A dressing room. [from 19th c.]
- (UK) A room or enclosed area containing a toilet: a bathroom or water closet. [from 19th c.]
- Sorry, I was in the toilet.
- 2002, Digby Tantam, Psychotherapy and Counselling in Practice: A Narrative Framework, p. 122:
- He would hit her when she cried and, if this did not work, would lock her in the toilet for hours on end.
- 2014, C.S. Walter, Abandoned Bridges, pp. 105 f.:
- (New Zealand) A small secondary lavatory having a toilet and sink but no bathtub or shower.
- (obsolete) A chamber pot.
- A fixture used for urination and defecation, particularly those with a large bowl and ring-shaped seat which use water to flush the waste material into a septic tank or sewer system. [from 19th c.]
- My toilet backed up. Now the bathroom's flooded.
- (figuratively) A very shabby or dirty place. [from 20th c.]
- 1982, The Mosquito Coast:
- Look around you. It's a toilet.
- 1991, Stephen King, Needful Things
- Mr. Gaunt was urbane and smiling again, not a hair out of place. "Do you like this little town? Do you love it? […] "
[…]
"I hate this fucking toilet," he said to Leland Gaunt.
- Mr. Gaunt was urbane and smiling again, not a hair out of place. "Do you like this little town? Do you love it? […] "
- 1982, The Mosquito Coast:
- (obsolete) A covering of linen, silk, or tapestry, spread over a table in a chamber or dressing room.
- (obsolete) A dressing table.
- 1904, Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock, Canto I, lines 121-126:
- And now, unveil’d, the toilet stands display’d,
- Each silver vase in mystic order laid.
- First, robed in white, the nymph intent adores,
- With head uncover’d, the cosmetic powers.
- A heav’nly image in the glass appears;
- To that she bends, to that her eyes she rears.
- 1904, Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock, Canto I, lines 121-126:
Usage notes
In present use, toilet refers most directly to fixtures for containing or removing human waste. As such, although toilet was originally a euphemism itself, its use to describe the place where the toilets are located (e.g., "Where is the toilet?") is now considered somewhat indiscreet; instead, it is more common to employ other euphemisms such as bathroom, restroom, or WC.
Until the late 19th century, toilet referred solely to personal grooming, including bathing and hair care. This still appears in toiletries and in various set phrases, such as toilet water and toilet bag. This use is sometimes understood as a new borrowing from French, despite being the older sense of the English word. Medical jargon also includes some set phrases such as “pulmonary toilet” and “toilet of the mouth”.
Synonyms
- (room for urination and defecation): See Thesaurus:bathroom
- (NZ, small room for urination and defecation): half bath, half bathroom (US); cloakroom (UK)
- (pot used for urination and defecation): Thesaurus:chamber pot
- (fixture for urination and defecation): See Thesaurus:toilet
- (in a nautical context): See head (item 4.1.4)
Hyponyms
- (fixture for urination and defecation): See Thesaurus:toilet
Derived terms
Descendants
Translations
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Verb
toilet (third-person singular simple present toilets, present participle toileting, simple past and past participle toileted)
- (dated) To dress and groom oneself
- To use the toilet
- To assist another (a child etc.) in using the toilet
References
- ^ "toilet, n." in the Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd ed. (2014), Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Anagrams
Danish
Etymology
Borrowed from French toilette (“small cloth”) diminutive of toile (“cloth”).
Pronunciation
Noun
toilet n (singular definite toilettet, plural indefinite toiletter)
- toilet (room containing lavatory); men's room, ladies' room
- toilet (lavatory)
Inflection
neuter gender |
Singular | Plural | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
indefinite | definite | indefinite | definite | |
nominative | toilet | toilettet | toiletter | toiletterne |
genitive | toilets | toilettets | toiletters | toiletternes |
Synonyms
Derived terms
Further reading
- toilet on the Danish Wikipedia.Wikipedia da
Dutch
Etymology
Borrowed from French toilette (“small cloth”), from Middle French toilette.
Pronunciation
Noun
toilet n (plural toiletten, diminutive toiletje n)
- toilet (room containing lavatory); men's room, ladies' room
- toilet (lavatory)
- Synonym: wc
- personal grooming
Derived terms
Descendants
- → Indonesian: toilet
Indonesian
Etymology
From Dutch toilet, from French toilette (“small cloth”) diminutive of toile (“cloth”).
Pronunciation
Noun
toilèt (first-person possessive toiletku, second-person possessive toiletmu, third-person possessive toiletnya)
- toilet (personal grooming).
- toilet, room used for urination and defecation.
- toilet, fixture used for urination and defecation.
Further reading
- “toilet” in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia, Jakarta: Agency for Language Development and Cultivation – Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia, 2016.
Tok Pisin
Etymology
From (deprecated template usage) [etyl] English toilet.
Noun
toilet
- English terms derived from Middle French
- English 2-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio links
- Rhymes:English/ɔɪlɪt
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English countable nouns
- English terms with archaic senses
- English terms with quotations
- English terms with rare senses
- British English
- English terms with usage examples
- New Zealand English
- English terms with obsolete senses
- English verbs
- English dated terms
- English euphemisms
- en:Buildings
- en:Buildings and structures
- en:Rooms
- en:WC
- Danish terms borrowed from French
- Danish terms derived from French
- Danish terms with IPA pronunciation
- Danish lemmas
- Danish nouns
- Danish neuter nouns
- da:WC
- Dutch terms borrowed from French
- Dutch terms derived from French
- Dutch terms derived from Middle French
- Dutch terms with IPA pronunciation
- Dutch terms with audio links
- Rhymes:Dutch/ɛt
- Dutch lemmas
- Dutch nouns
- Dutch nouns with plural in -en
- Dutch neuter nouns
- Indonesian terms borrowed from Dutch
- Indonesian terms derived from Dutch
- Indonesian terms derived from French
- Indonesian 2-syllable words
- Indonesian terms with IPA pronunciation
- Indonesian lemmas
- Indonesian nouns
- Requests for plural forms in Indonesian entries
- Tok Pisin terms derived from English
- Tok Pisin lemmas
- Tok Pisin nouns