Example sentences for: water-closet

How can you use “water-closet” in a sentence? Here are some example sentences to help you improve your vocabulary:

  • In the sixteenth century, an Elizabethan courtier, Sir John Harrington, invented a water-closet with a flushing system and wrote a book on the subject entitled A Metamorphosis of Ajax, published in 1596.

  • The word first gained general usage in Britain during World War II, and possibly came about as a result of fraternizing with French troops, perhaps as a corruption of l'eau (water) or lieux d'aisance (Water-closet), or even as a derivation of the cry ( Garde á l'eau! , given to warn passerby that someone above was about to slop out (the anglicised form, gardyloo ! , occurs in this context in a novel by Tobias Smollett as early as 1771).

  • While toilet and lavatory have discarded their original meanings, terms such as bog retained their original meanings (a marshy place) as well as being understood in Britain as a slang synonym for a toilet; it achieved an entry in Hotten's dictionary as early as 1864 as a privy as distinguished from a water-closet.


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