Sanitary means clean enough to be healthy. Sanitary conditions, a sanitary inspector, not sanitary.
It is about health rather than tidiness: sanitary conditions means conditions that will not make people ill, which is why the word belongs to public health and inspection. Sanitary ware means baths, basins and lavatories as a trade category. Note sanitation, the systems that carry waste away — the single largest public health improvement in history; and that the Latin behind it means health.
1adjectivesanitaryClean enough to be healthy.
“Without clean water and toilets, conditions in the camp were far from sanitary.”
sanitary is a quality of hygiene.
French sanitaire comes from Latin sanitas, health, from sanus, healthy. Sane, sanity and sanatorium come from the same health.
Latin
sanitas — health
French
sanitaire
English, today
sanitary
19th century, borrowed from French sanitaire, formed from Latin sanitas (“health”). Analysable as sanity + -ary.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA