toilet

[ toi-lit ]

noun

1. a bathroom fixture consisting of a bowl, usually with a detachable, hinged seat and lid, and a device for flushing with water, used for defecation and urination.
2. a lavatory.
3. a bathroom.
4. toilet bowl.
5. a dressing room, especially one containing a bath.
6. the act or process of dressing or grooming oneself, including bathing and arranging the hair:

   to make one's toilet; busy at her toilet.

7. toilet set.
8. the dress or costume of a person; any particular costume:

   toilet of white silk.

9. Surgery. the cleansing of a part after childbirth or a wound after an operation.
10. Archaic. dressing table.

toilet

/ ˈtɔɪlɪt /

noun

1. See lavatory
   another word for lavatory
2. old-fashioned.
   the act of dressing and preparing oneself

   to make one's toilet

3. old-fashioned.
   a dressing table or the articles used when making one's toilet
4. rare.
   costume
5. the cleansing of a wound, etc, after an operation or childbirth

Word History and Origins

Origin of toilet¹

1530–40; < French toilette small cloth, doily, dressing table, equivalent to toile toil ² + -ette -et

Word History and Origins

Origin of toilet¹

C16: from French toilette dress, from toile

Idioms and Phrases

Idioms

1. go down / in the toilet, to become worthless or profitless; be doomed:

   The team's entire season went down the toilet.

Example Sentences

Engineers are now developing smart toilets to analyze poop and pee.

From Science News For Students

A cat politely peeing into a toilet—it almost sounds like a dream.

From Popular-Science

It’s 12 pounds when it’s empty, and takes some forethought to load and set up, so it’s not the most mobile of bathrooms, but it feels the most like an indoor toilet.

From Outside Online

Let’s say you only have one bathroom and midway through the project you realize you can’t repair your toilet before the end of the day and need to call in an expert to help.

From Washington Blade

It’s all part of a carefully crafted set of green syllabi schools — even though they’re shut for the moment because of the pandemic — are developing Secmol students working on dry toilets.

From Ozy

Rogen refuses to share his toilet paper with Franco, and then they run into trouble starting a fire.

From The Daily Beast

He was in the bathroom, perhaps trying to flush some pot down the toilet, when a cop burst in.

From The Daily Beast

By this time there were three of us outside the toilet and one of us ran to get security.

From The Daily Beast

She was obsessed with the flower-printed, scented toilet paper.

From The Daily Beast

He would load his chair with groceries and other purchases, once a 30-roll package of toilet paper.

From The Daily Beast

A pair of thin trousers and a shirt hanging down outside instead of being tucked in at the waist, and his toilet is made.

From Project Gutenberg

Perfect cleanliness and careful adjustment of each article in the dress are indispensable in a finished toilet.

From Project Gutenberg

A toilet may be as offensive to good taste and propriety by being too elaborate, as by being slovenly.

From Project Gutenberg

All the toilet arrangements were perfect, and each room had a recess in which was a large enamelled bath.

From Project Gutenberg

He surmised it from the fact that his master disliked scent, even in his toilet soap.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• latrine
• lavatory
• outhouse
• restroom