toilet

Etymology

From Middle French toilette (“small cloth”), diminutive of toile (“cloth”), from their use to protect clothing while shaving or arranging hair. From its use as a private room, toilet came to refer euphemistically to lavatories and then to its fixtures, beginning in the United States in the late 19th century.

noun

1. (UK, Australia) A room or enclosed area containing a fixture used for urination and defecation (i.e. a toilet (sense 2)): a bathroom or water closet.
   Sorry, I was in the toilet.
   He would hit her when she cried and, if this did not work, would lock her in the toilet for hours on end. 2002, Digby Tantam, Psychotherapy and Counselling in Practice: A Narrative Framework, page 122
   He wet his thumb with saliva pressing on the tongue, ran it up and down faster over the letter 'I' of 'TOILET', the 'LADIES TOILET' was transformed into 'LADIES TO LET' in no time. 2014, C.S. Walter, Abandoned Bridges, pp. 105 f.
2. A fixture used for urination and defecation, particularly one with a large bowl and ring-shaped seat which uses water to flush the waste material into a septic tank or sewer system.
   My toilet backed up. Now the bathroom's flooded.
3. (figurative) A very shabby or dirty place.
   Look around you. It's a toilet. 1982, The Mosquito Coast
   Mr. Gaunt was urbane and smiling again, not a hair out of place. "Do you like this little town? Do you love it? […]" […] "I hate this fucking toilet," he said to Leland Gaunt. 1991, Stephen King, Needful Things
4. (New Zealand) A small secondary lavatory having a fixture used for urination and defecation (i.e. a toilet (sense 2)) and sink but no bathtub or shower.
5. (obsolete) A covering of linen, silk, or tapestry, spread over a dressing table in a chamber or dressing room.
6. (obsolete) The table covered by such a cloth; a dressing table.
   And now, unveil’d, the toilet stands display’d, Each silver vase in mystic order laid. 1714, Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock, Canto I, lines 121-126
7. (now historical or archaic) Personal grooming; the process of washing, dressing and arranging the hair.
   Against that short evening her toilet was consulted the whole day […]. 1791, Elizabeth Inchbald, A Simple Story, Oxford, published 2009, page 118
   Come as you are, tarry not over your toilet. 1913, Rabindranath Tagore, Come as you are..., Poetry Foundation, page 85
   Three women got down and standing on the curb they made unabashed toilets, smoothing skirts and stockings, brushing one another's back, opening parcels and donning various finery. 1931, William Faulkner, Sanctuary, Vintage, published 1993, page 111
   Here, at night, a lonely but brilliantly neon-illuminated figure, I performed my toilet, watched incuriously by the Burmese seated at the tables of the tea-shops below. 1952, Norman Lewis, Golden Earth, Chapter 8
8. (now rare, archaic) One's style of dressing: dress, outfit.
   "It is a quarter-past two," he said. "Your telegram was dispatched about one. But no one can glance at your toilet and attire without seeing that your disturbance dates from the moment of your waking." 1917, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge
9. (archaic) A dressing room.
10. (obsolete) A chamber pot.

verb

1. (dated) To dress and groom oneself.
2. To use (urinate or defecate in) a toilet.
   We use imitation. We take a doll, a doll that can wet, and make sure it has pants on it. We use the principle that a very effective way of learning is by teaching. Se we have him teach the doll how to toilet properly. 1974, Philip J. Hilts, Behavior Mod, Harper's Magazine Press, page 74
3. To assist another (a child, etc.) in using a toilet.