toilet
Listen:Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
toilet/ˈtɔɪlət/
▶noun
- 1 a large bowl for urinating or defecating into, typically plumbed into a sewage system; a lavatory.
- 2 the process of washing oneself, dressing, and attending to one's appearance.
■ [as modifier] denoting articles used in this process.
- 3 the cleansing of part of a person's body as a medical procedure.
word history: Toilet came from French toilette ‘cloth, wrapper’ and ultimately from Latin tela ‘woven material, web’. In 16th-century English a toilet was originally a cloth for wrapping clothes, then a cloth cover for a dressing table, the articles used in dressing, and eventually the process of dressing and washing oneself. In the 19th century toilet came to denote a dressing room with washing facilities; from this the modern meaning of ‘lavatory’ arose in the early 20th century.
'toilet' also found in these Oxford entries:
anal-retentive
- ballcock
- bathroom
- bog
- bumf
- can
- chamber pot
- cistern
- cloakroom
- closet
- cologne
- comfort station
- commode
- convenience
- cottage
- crapper
- dunny
- earth closet
- eau de cologne
- eau de toilette
- Elsan
- flush
- garderobe
- gent
- head
- jakes
- john
- khazi
- ladies' room
- lady
- latrine
- lavabo
- lavatory
- loo
- men's room
- outhouse
- pan
- pedestal
- powder room
- privy
- restroom
- sanitaryware
- sponge bag
- tea room
- throne
- thunderbox
- toilet bag
- toilet paper
- toilet roll
