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Lavatory   Listen
noun
Lavatory  n.  (pl. lavatories)  
1.
A place for washing.
2.
A basin or other vessel for washing in.
3.
A wash or lotion for a diseased part.
4.
A place where gold is obtained by washing.
5.
A room containing one or more sinks for washing, as well as one or more toilet fixtures; also called bathroom, toilet, and sometimes commode. Commode and toilet may refer to a room with only a toilet fixture, but without a sink.
Synonyms: toilet, lavatory, can, facility, john, privy, bathroom.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Lavatory" Quotes from Famous Books



... and me away. These two fellows really had come to the lavatory, but soaked as they were, in booze bubbles, they apparently forgot to proceed to their original destination, and were pulling us hard. All booze fighters seem to be attracted by whatever comes directly under their eyes for the moment and forget what ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri

... subject of jest against them by other people. There must be water into which I may tumble when I rise in the morning, or water in abundance in some way, else I should be a trifle uncomfortable all day long. I don't mean just a mild lavatory business, you know, but a plunge or a cataract, or something of that sort. It is barely possible, my dear, that you are going to marry a man whose remote ancestors were the product of evolution from otters, instead of monkeys. ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo

... in the southern part, which completes the square and was used as a passage-way, is the entrance to the great refectory where the brethren dined. Nothing of the hall is left save the ancient wall, but outside the door are remains of the niches which were used for towels; the lavatory itself was round the corner in the west cloister. The cloisters, and the monastic buildings which surround them, were built at different periods, chiefly by the generosity and energy of the Abbots. The Norman monastery remained intact long after Henry the Third's time, but the new cloister, ...
— Westminster Abbey • Mrs. A. Murray Smith

... The fellow called Simon Moonan that name because Simon Moonan used to tie the prefect's false sleeves behind his back and the prefect used to let on to be angry. But the sound was ugly. Once he had washed his hands in the lavatory of the Wicklow Hotel and his father pulled the stopper up by the chain after and the dirty water went down through the hole in the basin. And when it had all gone down slowly the hole in the basin had made a sound ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce

... sit cramped up all the time, he must have some space to stir about in. At night one of the seats forms one bed and another is let down crossways above it. There is, alas, no bath, but there is a small lavatory for every two compartments where we can wash after a fashion. There are even books provided in the restaurant car, some in Russian, some in French, some in German, ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton

... which he puts away his ordinary clothes when he dons his mining suit; the company—I should mention here—provides every man when he enters the service with a mining outfit. And to this hall there is attached a lavatory for the use of the men. The hall is well warmed in winter, and, being always on an upper floor, is well aired and ventilated in summer. From this hall at the Lagrange pit we walked into an adjoining room, where we found the miners going down the shaft in a great ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert

... the winding stair and was shown the dormitories, the walls decorated as gaily as if for a bride, but otherwise of a severe if comfortable simplicity. Every cot was as neat as a new hospital's in the second year of the war, and there was an immense lavatory on ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... through the rain, which still fell thick and resonant, to reach a lavatory on the other side of the court. There were three basin-stands, and a few crumpled towels and pieces of wet soap, white and slippery like fish; nor should I forget a looking-glass and a pair of questionable combs. Another Scots ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson

... extraneous hair, and read them the commandment which enjoins them from coveting their neighbor's scalp. Therefore, and in consideration of the good done by these Quakers, they and Mr. MORTON thought they ought to have a grant of land to enable them to continue their lavatory labors. ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 4, April 23, 1870 • Various

... Rabbinical law. He murmured something intended for Hebrew during the operation, and was beginning to mutter the devout little sentence which precedes the eating of bread when Rachel, who as a female was less driven to the lavatory ceremony, and had thus got ahead of him, paused in her ravenous mastication and made a wry face. Solomon took a huge bite at his crust, then he uttered an inarticulate "pooh," and spat ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... what is the next move?" asked the senator's son, as the two were alone in the lavatory, washing up after the ...
— Dave Porter and the Runaways - Last Days at Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer

... constantly maintained through the pipe. 8. No rainwater pipe and no overflow or waste pipe from any cistern or rainwater tank, or from any sink (other than a slop sink for urine), or from any bath or lavatory, should pass directly to the soilpipe; but every such pipe should be disconnected therefrom by passing through the wall to the outside of the house, and discharging with an end open to the air. I may mention here that the drainage arrangements of this Parkes Museum ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 421, January 26, 1884 • Various

... respectfully put the precious objects on a plate, to which he gave a place of honour on the mantel shelf, and after removing as far as possible all traces of beet from face and hands in his sacred office lavatory, he took Richard with him into the depths of the great chair and told the happy child his favourite rigmarole, all about the "three gentlemen of high degree," who do our housework for us. How the ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright

... room, salle-a-manger; nursery, schoolroom; library, study; studio; billiard room, smoking room; den; stateroom, tablinum, tenement. [room for defecation and urination] bath room, bathroom, toilet, lavatory, powder room; john, jakes, necessary, loo; [in public places] men's room, ladies' room, rest room; [fixtures: see 653 (uncleanness)]. attic, loft, garret, cockloft, clerestory; cellar, vault, hold, cockpit; cubbyhole; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... on the house and greenhouse adjacent, as well as to assist in the more picturesque grouping of the two. On this side is placed, approached by porch and lobby, the hall with a fireplace of the "olden time," lavatory, etc., butler's pantry, w. c., staircase, larder, kitchen, scullery, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 384, May 12, 1883 • Various

... interesting, and the cars so comfortable. They are not English, and not American; they are the Swiss combination of the two. A narrow and railed porch along the side, where a person can walk up and down. A lavatory in each car. This is progress; this is nineteenth-century spirit. In New Zealand, these fast expresses run twice a week. It is well to know this if you want to be a bird and fly through the country at a 20-mile gait; otherwise ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... English words to make you understand that you are in the wrong house. But these Chinese, as to faces and their wash-houses, and all the paraphernalia of their wash-houses, are so much alike that this is an easy mistake to make. You find the lavatory of Hip Tee, who pronounces the hieroglyphics all correct, and delivers you your lost and found shirts clean, with half the buttons broken, and the bosoms pounded, scrubbed and frayed into an ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various

... at Pompeii, which was largely a pleasure resort, is typical of the public baths that were in general use. These baths had several entrances, and the principal one led to a covered portico from which a lavatory opened. The portico ran round three sides of a courtyard (atrium) in which the attendants waited, and it was also the exercise-yard for the young men. Advertisements of the theatres and gladiatorial shows were exhibited on the walls of the atrium. ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott

... the only original feature remaining is the fine oaken ceiling. This is panelled, and moulded, and decorated with shields, upon which are painted and gilded various coats of arms. In the centre of the cloister garth are the remains of what was the monks' lavatory. It was erected in the years 1432 and 1433, and was of octagonal shape. Some of the stone for its construction was brought from Egglestone-on-Tees, on payment of rent to the abbot of that place to quarry it. It is said to have had twenty-four brass spouts, seven windows, and in its ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Durham - A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief History of the Episcopal See • J. E. Bygate

... women's lavatory separate; and one of these is the subject of the illustration. This arrangement, however, is more for convenience than in compliance with the demands of modesty as is evidenced by the fact that a male attendant is supplying water; and that his presence is plainly a matter of perfect ...
— Sketches of Japanese Manners and Customs • J. M. W. Silver

... five o'clock came, and Georgios having first been taken to the lavatory—it was but a stone trough—to wash his hands, was led to the dinner, or rather to the supper-table, which stood upon a dais in front of the entrance to the solar. Here places were laid for six—Sir Andrew, his ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard

... not shown herself narrow in her ideas of the articled pupil's capacity. It was her theory that no amount of intellectual labour, including some manual duties in the way of assisting in the lavatory on tub-nights, washing hair-brushes, and mending clothes, could be too much for a healthy young woman of nineteen. She always talked of Ida as a young woman. The other pupils of the same age she called girls; but of Ida she spoke ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon

... into mine at parting. It felt as moistly cold as a dead fish. After getting out again into the street, I turned into the first tavern I passed, and ordered a drink. Shall I tell you what else I did? I went into the lavatory, and washed Mr. Farnaby off my hand. (N.B.—If I had behaved in this way at Tadmor, I should have been punished with the lighter penalty—taking my meals by myself, and being forbidden to enter the Common Room for eight and forty hours.) I feel I am getting wickeder and wickeder in ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins

... strangely deficient in many respects. I have suffered bitter cold in the great chilly palace; at night one might break one's neck on the dark stone stairway; in some parts an ofttimes very foul and disgusting stench prevailed; the servants slept in stuffy hovels; there was a lavatory of which my father was very proud and which had cost enormous sums of money, but where in broad daylight one had to light a candle in order to ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden

... pillow, sheets, a coverlid, and sometimes an additional counterpane. The individual rooms, in addition to having better beds, contain a looking glass, a chair, a small table, and other furnishings according to the price of the room. In most cases washing facilities are only found in the lavatory, ...
— The Social Work of the Salvation Army • Edwin Gifford Lamb

... he wandered down through the empty offices—it was Saturday afternoon and Pomeroy and Parke closed promptly at twelve—had a brief chat with the Japanese janitor, and washed his hands and combed his hair very conscientiously in the president's own lavatory. ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris

... been a school. The children's lavatory is now the operating room. There are rows of basins along one side, set a trifle low for childish hands. When I saw them they were faintly rimmed with red. There was a locker room too. Once these lockers had held caps, no doubt, and overshoes, ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... magical. Decorum relegated the young women to separate rooms from the rest of the employees, and the formality in the bearing of heads of departments towards these pioneer females must have been gratifying to Mrs Grundy. So superior to human exigencies seemed these dignified men, that the subject of lavatory accommodation for young women, mewed up from 9 to 1 and from 2 to 5.30, was not mentioned. Woman's modesty, if it were to reach the high standard made for her by man, had to come before her health or comfort. ...
— Women Workers in Seven Professions • Edith J. Morley

... room to the laboratory at the back, and from thence, down the private stairs, past a privy, into the lower laboratory. As they passed the privy one of the officers asked what place it was. "Dr. Webster's private lavatory," replied the janitor, who was conducting them. At that moment Webster's voice called them away to examine the store-room in the lower laboratory, and after a cursory examination the ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving

... improvement in such matters in recent years. In many American factories erected in the last quarter-century the conditions as to lighting, heating, ventilation, stairways, fire-escapes, protection of the workers against accidents, and lavatory and sanitary arrangements, are better than the best conditions ever existing in domestic manufactures. A somewhat corresponding improvement has taken place on railroads, in mercantile establishments and, perhaps less, ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter

... New York was so high-ceiled and the summer cold-air apparatus so complete that it was comfortable even in the hot months. In most of the hotel laundries there were seats for the takers-off. Only three of the laundries had wet floors; only three were dirty; only one had an insanitary lavatory and toilet room. ...
— Making Both Ends Meet • Sue Ainslie Clark and Edith Wyatt

... First there was a door with a glass window, but the window had dark blue gauze fixed to it, so that nobody could see into the lobby from the office; but a person in the lobby, by putting his eye close to the gauze, could see into the office in a filmy sort of way. This door opened on a lavatory, and there were also pegs on which the clerks hung their overcoats. Then there was a swing-door leading direct to the street, and sideways into a small room ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade

... are well furnished. The corridors are like streets—space, elegance, solidity, and comfort are apparent everywhere; the whole being lighted by gas and electricity. Each bedroom has a bath-room, with hot and cold water services; w.c., coat-closet, and lavatory closet, with hot and cold water services to itself, and which can only be used by the occupant of the bed-room. The hotel, of course, has a barber's shop, and as I expected my client to call I was anxious to get through my toilet ...
— A start in life • C. F. Dowsett

... without my ticket and wire back to get my trunk expressed. Considering the temper of the people, the separate coach law may be the wisest plan for the South, but the statement that the two races have equal accommodations is all bosh. I pay the same money, but I cannot have a chair or a lavatory, and rarely a through car. I must crawl out at all times of night, and in all kinds of weather, in order to catch another dirty 'Jim Crow' coach to make my connections. I do not ask to ride with white ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe

... gold decoration adorns the south wall, and before the hearth is a large rug composed entirely of skins of the eider-down duck, brought from the Arctic regions. Pictures and bric-a-brac everywhere suggest the tribute of loving friends. One of the two alcoves is a retiring-room and the other a lavatory in which the plumbing is all ...
— Pulpit and Press • Mary Baker Eddy

... descended, a waiting-room for clients, pleasantly furnished, a room in which two female clerks worked, and off this a small room tenanted by an office boy. You may also add in imagination an excellent lavatory for the clerks, two telephones (one in the partners' room), hidden safes, wall-maps; and you must visualize everything as pleasing in colour—green, white, and purple—flooded with light; clean, tidy, and admirably adapted ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston

... every stick 'as a 'at or cap, and on the 'all table is the gloves corresponding. On the right is the door leading to the kitching, on the left is the large droring-room which Mr. Brumley 'as took as 'is study." Her voice fell to lowlier things. "The other door beyond is a small lavatory 'aving ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... the railway service excellent in every respect. The carriages are comfortable. Ample accommodation is given for each person. It is possible to stow away a considerable amount of barang or baggage in the carriages, and full advantage is taken of this facility by the Dutch and native travellers. The lavatory accommodation is better than we have seen it in the fast expresses on the principal lines in England, and on the through service expresses there are restaurant cars where meals may be partaken of at a moderate tariff. We cannot say we always ...
— Across the Equator - A Holiday Trip in Java • Thomas H. Reid

... the heroine of the adventure. As soon as she saw the man entering the carriage, she realised his purpose. Slipping into the lavatory she climbed through the window there on to the footboard, and pulled herself along by the carriage rods to the next compartment where the solitary occupant, an ...
— Bengal Dacoits and Tigers • Maharanee Sunity Devee

... the way up a back stairs and to the room occupied that term by Tubbs and some other students. They met the dudish student, half dressed, going to the lavatory to wash up. ...
— The Rover Boys in New York • Arthur M. Winfield

... For Clogged Lavatory Basins—Mix a handful of soda with a handful of common salt and force it down the pipe; then rinse the pipe thoroughly ...
— Fowler's Household Helps • A. L. Fowler

... end of a long room beyond the skylight which, except a feeble side window, was its only light in the daytime, was a door that led past a small lavatory and up half a dozen narrow steps to the kitchen, one of the strangest and grimmest old kitchens you ever saw. Across a mighty hatch, thronged with dishes, you looked into it and beheld there the white-jacketed man-cook, ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson

... second and similar doorway a few yards further on, but it has been blocked (doubtless when the cross-wall was built at the back of it between the Chapter-house and vestry), and a square-headed doorway has been made to open into the latter. To the right of this entrance is a square-headed lavatory with a projecting rectangular basin and a hole knocked through into the lobby behind. This lavatory is of course an insertion, probably of the fifteenth century; indeed the whole of this part of the wall has been much repaired ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ripon - A Short History of the Church and a Description of Its Fabric • Cecil Walter Charles Hallett

... when she chose, she could do them in a hundredth part of the time taken by her companions; she hated getting up in the wintry dark, and her cold ablutions with some dozen others in the comfortless lavatory; she hated the meals in the long schoolroom, where, because twice meat was forbidden and twice pudding allowed, she invariably hungered fiercely for more mutton and scorned her second course, making a sort of dramatic story to herself ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... daily newspapers; another ascent, and they were in a room devoted to magazines, chess, and refreshments; yet another, and they reached the department of weekly publications; lastly, at the top of the house, they found a lavatory, and a chamber for the use of those who desired to write. The walls of this last retreat were of blue plaster and sloped inwards from the floor; along them stood school desks with benches, and in one place was suspended a ragged and dirty card announcing that paper and envelopes could be purchased ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing

... the living. Such was the state of the bastions and their underground passages that the Magyar soldiers came as rarely as they could manage. It was, said Hegedues, a provisional arrangement to have about a thousand people in one of these passages or lunettes, with no lavatory. But it was not only the nonagenarians—several of whom were at Arad—that found their life was a very provisional affair. You could be killed in different ways: the dying were occasionally wrapped in a ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein

... great danger rather than an advantage. Now she wished for her aunt Maria's face instead of her own. She imagined that Aunt Maria might have no difficulty even under the same adverse circumstances. She looked years younger than she was. She thought for a moment of going into the lavatory and rearranging her hair, with a view to making herself look plain and old, as she had done before, but she recalled the enormous change it had made in her appearance, and she was afraid to do that lest ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... than was proper, considering that the rent of it came to about sixpence a minute. There was room, even after all the packages were stowed, for both of them to lie down. But instead of lying down they eagerly inspected the little abode. They found a lavatory basin with hot and cold water taps, but no hot water and no cold water, no soap and no towels. And they found a crystal water-bottle, but it was empty. Then a steward came and asked them if they wanted anything, ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett

... jet of gas burning at one end of the room, near a door opening into a lavatory which was little more than a cupboard, but in which ten young ladies had to perform their daily ablutions. Here I washed my face and hands in icy-cold water, and arranged my hair as well as I could without ...
— Milly Darrell and Other Tales • M. E. Braddon

... Justice, in Paris. There is Noah's adventure carved to the last detail, as under the great portal of Bourges. There is a bacchanalian monk, with ass's ears and glass in hand, laughing in the face of a whole community, as on the lavatory of the Abbey of Bocherville. There exists at that epoch, for thought written in stone, a privilege exactly comparable to our present liberty of the press. It ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo

... the Great Northern line were divided into three compartments - one at each end for travellers, and one in the centre fitted with the conveniences of a lavatory. A door running in grooves separated each of the others from the lavatory; but as there were neither bolts nor locks, the whole suite was ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Havilands had refused to be benefited in any way but their own; their own way, in the Pigotts' opinion, being invariably a foolish one—"between you and me, sir, they hadn't a sound business head among them." As for Ted and Katherine, before the day when he had washed his hands of Ted in the office lavatory, uncle James had tried to play the part of an overruling Providence in their affairs, and the young infidels had signified their utter disbelief in him. Since then he had ceased to interfere with his creatures; and latterly his finger was only to be seen at ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair

... just as an aide rushed in. "Colonel, I have good news! Our men have gained control of most of the immediate hallway and we have captured the lavatory ...
— I Was a Teen-Age Secret Weapon • Richard Sabia

... when they came in to sweep the rooms and open the windows. He went into the lavatory, and there bathed his face. When his ablutions were over he wrote a note to Jeanne, saying that he had reflected, and could not possibly let her go away with him. He implored her to do all in her power to forget him. He gave this letter to one of the messengers, and told him to ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet



Words linked to "Lavatory" :   restroom, pull chain, wash room, washbasin, convenience, closet, washstand, pot, public toilet, water closet, throne, sink, head, crapper, room, washbowl, W.C., can, commode, john, washroom



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