Collections, Mixed Lots

A toilet is a plumbing fixture and a disposal system primarily intended for the disposal of the bodily wastes; urine, fecal matter, vomit and menses. Toilets additionally accept a paper product known as toilet paper. Other objects may cause blockages in the plumbing. more...

Home
Art
Bead Art
General Art & Craft Supplies
Glass Art Crafts
Kids Crafts
Painting
Rubber Stamping & Embossing
Embossing Supplies
Other Stamping & Embossing
Paper, Stationery
Rubber Stamp Wheels
Rubber Stamping Idea Books
Rubber Stamping Kits
Rubber Stamps
Mounted Rubber Stamps
Alphabet, Numbers
Angels & Fairies
Animals & Insects
Baby
Birthday
Borders
Characters
Collage
Collections, Mixed Lots
Flowers, Leaves
Holidays
Love, Hearts, Wedding
Other Stamping Themes
People, Family & Jobs
Poems & Sayings
Religious
Shapes
Toys, Dolls & Bears
Unmounted Rubber Stamps
Alphabet, Numbers
Angels & Fairies
Animals & Insects
Borders
Flowers, Leaves
Holidays
Other Stamping Themes
Stamp Handles & Mounts
Stamping Ink & Pads
Stamping Instruction,...
Stamping Tools & Equipment

The word toilet can be used to refer to the fixture itself or the room containing it; the latter predominates mainly in British and Commonwealth usage. In North American English the word toilet refers solely to the fixture itself and not to the room that contains it, thus asking for the \"toilet\" would seem indecent. Instead, the euphemisms bathroom, rest room, washroom or men's room / women's room are preferred.

History

Toilets appeared as early as 2500 BCE. The people of the Harappan civilization in Pakistan and north-western India had water-flushing toilets in each house that were linked with drains covered with burnt clay bricks. There were also toilets in Minoan Crete, Egypt in the time of the Pharoahs, Persia and ancient China . In Roman civilization, toilets were sometimes part of public bath houses.

Etymology

The word toilet came to be used in English along with other French fashions (first noted 1681) . It originally referred to the whole complex of operations of hairdressing and body care that centered at a dressing table covered to the floor with cloth (toile) and lace, on which stood a mirror, which might also be draped in lace: the ensemble was a toilette. The English poet Alexander Pope in The Rape of the Lock (1717) described the intricacies of a lady's preparation:

‘And now, unveil'd, the toilet stands display'd

Each silver vase in mystic order laid.’

Through the 18th century, everywhere in the English-speaking world, a toilet remained a lady's draped dressing-table. The word was adapted as a genteel euphemism for the room and the object as we know them now, perhaps following the French usage cabinet de toilette, much as powder-room may be coyly used today, and this has been linked to the introduction of public toilets, for example on railway trains, which required a plaque on the door. The original usage has become indelicate and obsolete, and has been replaced by dressing-table.

Vestiges of the original meaning continue to be reflected in terms such as toiletries, eau de toilette and toilet bag (to carry flannels, soaps, etc). This seemingly contradictory terminology has served as the basis for various parodies ranging from Jeff Foxworthy's routine (\"If you think that 'toilet water' is in fact toilet water, you just might be a redneck!\") to Cosmopolitan magazine (\"If it doesn't say 'eau de toilette' on the label, it most likely doesn't come from the famed region of Eau de Toilette in France and might not even come from toilets at all.\")

Read more at Wikipedia.org