• toilet •
Pronunciation: toy-lit • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: 1. A water closet, a lavatory, a fixture connected to a sewer for defecation and urination. 2. The room in which such a fixture is located, loo, dunny. 3. Toilette, the process of attending to one's appearance.
Notes: Many word mavens think that today's word at some point in its past had to do with toil in the sense of "labor, work". As the Word History will show, that is not the case. Articles pertaining to this word in the 3rd sense (toilet articles) may be referred to as toiletry.
In Play: The first sense of today is something many of us refer to as the 'throne': "As he listened to the toilet flush, it reminded Les Canoodle of his chances with Portia Radcliff." We seldom hear today's word used the third sense, often confused with toilette: "Having finished her toilet, Sheila lilted down the stairs a radiant sight to behold."
Word History: The meaning of today's Good Word has, well, gone down the toilet. It entered English in the 16th century from French toilette "cloth, wrapper", diminutive of toile "net, web". By the 17th century it had come to denote a cloth cover for a dressing table, then the articles used in dressing, and the process of dressing, where it remained with its then current spelling (toilette). In the 19th century the word came to denote a dressing room, and, in the US, one with washing facilities with the special porcelain fixture for relieving oneself. Finally, a second meaning arose referring to that fixture itself. Old French toile "cloth" was derived from Latin tela "web, net, warp" which, in its term, devolved from PIE teks- "to weave", found in textile and text. We also see it in subtle, from subtela "thread passing under the warp". This toile is unrelated to toil in the sense "hard work". This word comes from Anglo-French toiler "agitate, stir up", a reduction of Latin tudiculare "crush with a small hammer", based on tudes "hammer". (We thank Perry Lassiter for suggesting a today's Good Word, which I cannot work into this note of gratitude for obvious reasons.)
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