Etymology
Detail of
Queen Charlotte with her Two Eldest Sons,
Johan Zoffany, 1765, (
the whole painting). She is doing her toilet, with her
silver-gilt toilet serviceon the dressing-table
Toilet was originally a
French loanword (first attested in 1540) that referred to the
toilette ("little cloth") draped over one's shoulders during hairdressing.
[42] During the late 17th century,
[42] the term came to be used by
metonymy in both languages for the whole complex of
grooming and body care that centered at a
dressing table (also covered by a cloth) and for the equipment composing a
toilet service, including a mirror, hairbrushes, and containers for powder and makeup. The time spent at such a table also came to be known as one's "toilet"; it came to be a period during which close friends or tradesmen were received as "toilet-calls".
[42][45]
The use of "toilet" to describe a special room for grooming came much later (first attested in 1819), following the French
cabinet de toilet. Similar to "powder room", "toilet" then came to be used as a
euphemism for
rooms dedicated to urination and defecation, particularly in the context of signs for
public toilets, as
on trains. Finally, it came to be used for the
plumbing fixtures in such rooms (apparently first in the United States) as these replaced
chamber pots,
outhouses, and
latrines. These two uses, the fixture and the room, completely supplanted the other senses of the word during the 20th century
[42] except in the form "
toiletries".
[n 2]
Contemporary Use
The word "toilet", for the plumbing fixture or for the room, is considered impolite in some
varieties of English, while elsewhere the word is used without any embarrassment. "Toilet" was
by etymology a euphemism, but is no longer understood as such. As old euphemisms have become the standard term, they have been progressively replaced by newer ones, an example of the
euphemism treadmill at work.
[46] The choice of word relies not only on
regional variation, but also on social situation and level of formality (
register) or
social class. American manufacturers show an uneasiness with the word and its class attributes:
American Standard, the largest firm, sells them as "toilets", yet the higher priced products of the
Kohler Company, often installed in more expensive housing, are sold as
commodes or
closets, words which also carry other meanings. Confusingly, products imported from Japan such as
TOTO are referred to as "toilets", even though they carry the cachet of higher cost and quality. (Toto, an abbreviation of Tōyō Tōki (東洋陶器 Oriental Ceramics), is used in
Japanese comics to visually indicate toilets or other things that look like toilets; see
Toilets in Japan.)
Regional Variants
Different dialects use "bathroom" and "restroom" (
American English), "bathroom" and "washroom" (
Canadian English), and "WC" (an initialism for "water closet"), "lavatory" and its abbreviation "lav" (
British English).
Euphemisms
Crapper –
Crapper was already in use as a coarse name for a toilet, but it gained currency from the work of
Thomas Crapper, who popularized flush toilets in England.
The Jacks is Irish slang for toilet.
[47] It perhaps derives from "jacques" and "jakes", an old English term.
[48]
Loo – The etymology of loo is obscure. The
Oxford English Dictionary notes the 1922 appearance of "How much cost? Waterloo. Watercloset." in
James Joyce's novel
Ulysses and defers to
Alan S. C. Ross's arguments that it derived in some fashion from
the site of
Napoleon's
1815 defeat.
[49][50] In the 1950s the use of the word "loo" was considered one of the markers of
British upper-class speech, featuring in a famous essay, "
U and non-U English".
[51]"Loo" may have derived from a corruption of French
l'eau ("water"),
gare à l'eau ("mind the water", used in reference to emptying
chamber pots into the street from an upper-story window),
lieu ("place"),
lieu d'aisance ("place of ease", used euphemistically for a toilet), or
lieu à l'anglaise ("English place", used from around 1770 to refer to English-style toilets installed for travelers).
[49][52][53] Other proposed etymologies include a supposed tendency to place toilets in room 100 (hence "loo") in English hotels,
[54] a dialectical corruption of the nautical term "
lee" in reference to the need to urinate and defecate with the wind prior to the advent of
head pumps,
[n 3] or the 17th-century preacher
Louis Bourdaloue, whose long sermons at Paris's
Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis prompted his parishioners to bring along chamber pots.