Other forms: lavatories
A lavatory is a room with a toilet, in formal use. The public lavatory.
Which word people use for it is one of the sharpest class markers in British English. The Latin behind lavatory is a place for washing, which is what almost every word for it has originally meant.
1nounlavatoryA room with a toilet, in formal use.
“The lavatory was down two flights and along a corridor.”
lavatory is a room.
Latin lavatorium means a place for washing, from lavare, to wash.
Latin
lavātōrium
Middle English
lavatorie
English, today
lavatory
From Middle English lavatorie, from Latin lavātōrium, from Latin lavō (“to wash”) + -ium. As a place to pan gold, via Spanish lavadero. a doublet of lavatorium and laver. See also lave.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA