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Dictionary

Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

privy house en · NOUN

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).

Meanings

  1. An outhouse: an outbuilding used for urination and defecation.
    • 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'. 1937, Zora N. Hurston, chapter XIX, in Their Eyes Were Watching God, page 255:
    • I wil that ye newe prevy hous ovir the synkke be the dore... serve for the parlour and chambir a loffte. 1463, will in S. Tymm's 1850 Wills and Inventories of Bury St. Edmunds, p. 20
    • The filthiness and nasty things of the said privy house of office, flowed out... into the cellar aforesaid. 1776, Young Clerk's Complete Guide, page 106:
    • An intact, clapboarded privy house still stands within the foundation of the 1794 ministry barn. 2004, D.R. Starbuck, chapter II, in Neither Plain nor Simple, page 116:

Forms

SpellingFeaturesLabelsSource
privy houses Number=Plur lexicographic
privy-house alternative lexicographic

Hypernyms

privy · house

Synonyms

outhouse