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toilet

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: /ˈtɔɪ.lət/[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Middle French toilette (“a cloth; a bag for clothes”),[2][3][4][5] a diminutive of toile (“cloth, net”) (see toil and toile).[2][4][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

A cloth cover or bag used as a wrapper for clothes: 1540.[7][2][4]

Semantic evolution

The word went from the cloth to the things it covered, which in turn gave the name of the activity.[8][5] A cloth cover for a dressing table is from 1682,[7] and the articles used in dressing, the mirror, combs and bottles, from 1662 in Evelyn's Diary;[2][7] through them toilet acquired an association with upper-class dressing in the 18th century.[4] The act of dressing, especially of dressing and powdering the hair, is from 1681,[2][7] and led to the 18th-century fashionable reception of visitors by a lady while she finished her toilet (1703).[7][4] A dressing room is by 1819, in Byron's Don Juan,[2][4] and in America especially one with washing facilities.[8] The sense of a lavatory or a porcelain plumbing fixture appeared in 1895,[2] but became common only in the early 20th century.[8] Toiletry is from 1892.[2]

Timeline

  • 1540 – a wrapper for clothes.[7][2]
  • 1662 – articles used in dressing, in Evelyn.[2][7]
  • 1681 – the act of dressing.[2][7]
  • 1682 – a dressing-table cover.[7]
  • 1703 – a lady's reception during her toilet.[7]
  • 1819 – a dressing room, in Byron.[2]
  • 1892 – toiletry.[2]
  • 1895 – a lavatory.[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. A fixture for urination and defecation, with a bowl connected to a drain and a flushing device; a room containing one.
  2. (old-fashioned) The act or process of washing, dressing and grooming oneself.
  3. (old-fashioned) A dressing table, or the articles used in grooming.
  4. (medicine) The cleaning of a wound or part after an operation or childbirth.

Verb

  1. To help a child or invalid use a toilet.

Word family

  • toilet-train
  • toiletry
  • toilet bowl
  • toilet paper
  • toilet powder
  • toilet seat
  • toilet set
  • toile
  • toilette
  • toil
  • loo

Usage notes

Word Origins notes that the sense of washing and dressing oneself, now rather dated, is also expressed by the French form toilette.[8]

References

  1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  3. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  4. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  5. ^ a b Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  8. ^ a b c d Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press