toilette

See also: Toilette and toiletté

English

Etymology

Borrowed from French toilette; more at toilet.

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -ɛt

Noun

toilette (plural toilettes)

1. Archaic form of toilet. (in all senses related to dressing and personal grooming, but not a water closet)
   • 1831, Letitia Elizabeth Landon, Romance and Reality, volume 1, page 291:

     No such very great degree of genius can be displayed in the rest of the toilette. The dress has been chosen—it fits you à ravir—it has simply to be put on with mathematical accuracy: but the bonnet is the triumph of taste,—you must exert your intellect,—your destiny is in your own hands.

   • 1848-50, William Makepeace Thackeray, Pendennis, ch 19:

     He was elaborately attired. He would ogle the ladies who came to lionise the university, and passed before him on the arms of happy gownsmen, and give his opinion upon their personal charms, or their toilettes, with the gravity of a critic whose experience entitled him to speak with authority.

   • 1871, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter I, in Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life, volume I, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, OCLC 948783829, book I (Miss Brooke), 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.

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French

Etymology

toile (“cloth”) +‎ -ette

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /twa.lɛt/

• Audio

  (file)

Noun

toilette f (plural toilettes)

1. toilet (act of cleaning oneself)
2. (Belgium) the toilet, lavatory

Usage notes

• In Belgium the word for "toilet/lavatory" can be singular (la toilette) while in the rest of the world the noun is only plural (les toilettes).

Derived terms

• brosse de toilettes
• eau de toilette
• gant de toilette
• papier toilette
• trousse de toilette

Descendants

• → German: Toilette
• → Polish: toaleta

Further reading

• “toilette”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

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Italian

Etymology

Borrowed from French toilette.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /twaˈlɛt/, /tu.aˈlɛt/
• Rhymes: -ɛt

Noun

toilette f (invariable)

1. toilet (all senses)
2. makeup
3. dressing table

Anagrams

• toeletti

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Portuguese

Alternative forms

• toalete, toilete

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from French toilette.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): (Brazil) /to.aˈlɛ.t͡ʃi/, [to.aˈlɛ.t͡ʃi]

• Rhymes: -ɛt(ʃ)i

Noun

toilette f (plural toilettes)

1. toilet (personal grooming)

Noun

toilette m (plural toilettes)

1. toilet; lavatory; bathroom

   Synonyms: lavabo, banheiro, casa de banho