624: toilet Aug 23, 2016

Somethings may seem essential and timeless, but in fact toilets, meant something very different. Toilet is originally a French word, 'toilette' but with a very different meaning than the word carries today. Though we may now think of them as porcelain, originally, the word meant ‘cloth wrapper’ as a diminutive of 'toile'. 'Toile' as well was adopted into English, first meaning a canvas for artwork, which is derived from the Latin for 'web', but in French meant 'cloth' and usually a cheap one. 'Toilette' in its earliest usage expressed a cloth used to wrap other clothes. Over the years, the meaning of the word changed to "the cover for a dressing table" and "act of dressing". Later still, the word was used to mean "wash oneself". In America, where plenty of its own slang developed, 'toilet' came to mean "a dressing room with washing facilities", which is why, in addition to sensitivity, very often 'bathroom' is used to refer to a water closet, lavatory, toilet, or however you choose to phrase it.