privy house
See also: privy-house
English
Alternative forms
Etymology
From privy (“outhouse”) to clarify the intended sense, likely under the influence of Anglo-Norman privé hostel (attested in an 1139 British source) and Latin domus privata (1141).[1]
Noun
privy house (plural privy houses)
- An outhouse: an outbuilding used for urination and defecation.
- 1463, will in S. Tymm's 1850 Wills and Inventories of Bury St. Edmunds, p. 20:
- 1776, Young Clerk's Complete Guide, p. 106:
- The filthiness and nasty things of the said privy house of office, flowed out... into the cellar aforesaid.
- 1937, Zora N. Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Ch. xix, p. 255:
- 2004, D.R. Starbuck, Neither Plain nor Simple, Ch. ii, p. 116:
- An intact, clapboarded privy house still stands within the foundation of the 1794 ministry barn.
Synonyms
Hypernyms
- house (structurally)
- privy; see also Thesaurus:bathroom
References
- "privy, adj., n., and adv." in the Oxford English Dictionary (2007), Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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