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)

  1. 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:
      I wil that ye newe ovir the synkke be the dore... serve for the parlour and chambir a loffte.
    • 1776, Young Clerk's Complete Guide, page 106:
      The filthiness and nasty things of the said privy house of office, flowed out... into the cellar aforesaid.
    • 1937, Zora N. Hurston, chapter XIX, in Their Eyes Were Watching God, page 255:
      So far as he's concerned, all dem he don't know oughta be tried and sentenced tuh six months behind de United States privy house at hard smellin'.
    • 2004, D.R. Starbuck, chapter II, in Neither Plain nor Simple, page 116:
      An intact, clapboarded privy house still stands within the foundation of the 1794 ministry barn.

Synonyms

Hypernyms

References

  1. ^ "privy, adj., n., and adv." in the Oxford English Dictionary (2007), Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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