I went a garden party at Buckingham Palace last week and saw a sign to the lavatories. Lavatory is the top person’s word for what most other people call toilet in UK, and it got me interested.
According to my Shorter Oxford Dictionary, lavatory comes from the latin lavare to wash, so is a room with washing facilities, but now also one which serves the other bodily functions, and the apparatus associated with this.
Toilet derives from French toile which is the word for cloth - in particular one used to cover the shoulders when hairdressing.
SED doesn’t recognise the connection but I suspect this is also where the word towel comes from. In the SED towel comes from old French toaille, but further back we have derivations from Old Saxon, Old High German and Gothic all of which mean “wash”.
We also have twill, a type of fabric. This seems to be so called because it is two threaded - Latin twi-licium. I don’t know if there is any connection here with washing and towels.
Adam Hart-Davis did a TV programme a bit back on what the Victorians did for us. He showed an old railway carriage which had a compartment labelled lavatory. Across the corridor was another compartment labelled toilet, which would be a bit puzzling nowadays.
Of course toilet, towel, text, texture and a series of other words derive from the latin te(xe)la [fabric, cloth, textile] from the latin verb texo, which derives from the Greek verb tefho (fut. tefxo; weave, create, build, construct; τεύχω). From the same root the words: tecton (see: architecton: architect) and techni (mastery, workmanship. art; see: technical).
I will come back with a more detailed post, if I’ll find some more time.
If I remember my French, “faire la toilet” was an idiom to do one’s morning ablutions, to wit, wash, shave, brush teeth, comb hair, etc.
Lavatory from the Latin “lavare” , to wash. A Wash room. It is interesting in UK toilet is used. In both UK and USA it seems from where I stand that lavatory is dying. Here it is more often than not
called a “bathroom”, even tho’ no bathing facilities are offered. Probably from years of parents teaching young’uns to “go the bathroom” and the term is now applied everwhere from theaters to
airports. I seldom here and never see “toilet” anywhere.
How does “LOO” fit into all this in the UK?
And of course there is PORTAPOTTY, where does ‘potty’ come from?
Bandito has already expounded at length on the social niceties of his potty training. Try doing a search for the “callypygian” thread, also “shall we dance”
If I remember my French, “faire la toilet” was an idiom to do one’s morning ablutions, to wit, wash, shave, brush teeth, comb hair, etc.
Lavatory from the Latin “lavare” , to wash. A Wash room. It is interesting in UK toilet is used. In both UK and USA it seems from where I stand that lavatory is dying. Here it is more often than not
called a “bathroom”, even tho’ no bathing facilities are offered. Probably from years of parents teaching young’uns to “go the bathroom” and the term is now applied everwhere from theaters to
airports. I seldom here and never see “toilet” anywhere.
How does “LOO” fit into all this in the UK?
And of course there is PORTAPOTTY, where does ‘potty’ come from?
Thanks for the various responses. Loo is used as a sort of polite term by some people - from the French l’eau - but you won’t see it on a sign, except that we have Portaloos.
Potty is from chamber pot. My grandfather called it a guzunder because it goes under the bed or at least used to in days when inside lavatories/toilets weren’t common.
Is a Portapotty the same as a Portaloo - one of those outdoor thunder boxes they have on building sites etc?
Yes, portapotty same as portaloo.
Very interesting. I guess I could have guessed chamber pot, if I had given it a thought or two,
I really like guzunder. Will have to remember that one.
‘Comfort room”: usually means “give me my space”. Room to operate, space to get my job done. I can see how it would apply to lavatories and the like (loos, toilets, bathrooms) but I’ve never
heard it used that way, but I am only one person.
Here in our land, we use the acronym CR. That is Comfort Room.
We sometimes use Wash Room. We rarely call it Lavatory.
Is this some kind of regionalism?
Lavatory comes from the Latin: Lavare: meaning “to wash”, hence a washroom.
As sleeper mentions above. Never heard of comfort room or CR.
In UK one will hear WC, which stands for “water closet”.
