[Sca-cooks] adjective "privy" - meanings

Mon May 23 12:31:26 PDT 2005

Julian, 

I am really surprised that you didn't look up "privy" in the Oxford English Dictionary, which
to many is the superlative authority in English word usage over the years.  I not only own
a copy, but I also subscribe to OED Online, just for these occasions.

While the majority of definitions of "privy" in the OED are not concerning the toilet, there
are several definitions that do and are pre-1600.  They are:

 c. privy house (also 5 privehouse) = B. 3. So privy stool, a close-stool. Obs. 

  c1460 J. RUSSELL Bk. Nurture 931 Se δe privehouse for esement be fayre, soote, & clene.
1528 Test. Ebor. (Surtees) V. 254 In his owne chambre..A prevey stole, iiijd. 1660 WOOD Life
(O.H.S.) 
I. 358 A common privy house belonging to Peckwater Quadrangle. 1679 Ibid. 30 Jan. II. 435 He
throw'd it in the privy house.

and

II. Of things.

    3. A private place of ease, a latrine, a necessary: see A. 8c. 

  1375 BARBOUR Bruce v. 556 The king had in custum ay For to riss airly euirilk day, And pas weill
fer fra his menεe, Quhen he vald pas to the preue. c1400 Lanfranc's Cirurg. 273 Whanne he
sitti at priuy he schal not streyne him-silf to harde. 1423 Coventry Leet Bk. 59 Allso δai
orden δat..all the pryves & swynesties δeron be done away. 1530 Nottingham Rec. III. 364
A prevye comyng out of the Kynges Jayle in to the hie-wey, vnto the grett noysance of alle the
inhabytantes. 1650 HOWELL Giraffi's Rev. Naples I. (1664) 104 They pried into the very privies and
jakes. 1704 SWIFT Mech. Operat. Spirit §2 Misc. (1711) 303 As if a Traveller should go about to
describe a Palace, when he had seen nothing but the Privy. 1869 E. A. PARKES Pract. Hygiene (ed.
3) 107 The clearing out of a privy produced in twenty-three children violent vomiting.

  attrib. a1225 Ancr. R. 276 Ne berest tu two δurles, ase δauh hit weren two priue
δurles? 1483 Cath. Angl. 292/1 A Pryvay scowrare..cloacarius. 1897 Allbutt's Syst. Med. II.
413 The bad privy accommodation. 1898 P. MANSON Trop. Diseases xi. 194 A peculiar mawkish, privy
odour.

This is in no way a flame, just an attempt to show that this word has had many definitions 
historically.

Huette

--- julian wilson <smnco37 at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> Phlip <phlip at 99main.com> wrote:
> Ene bichizh ogsen baina shuu...
> 
> > > And why do you want him to put it in the toilet, Lady's Room or
> otherwise?
> >
> > Phlip, honey, he didn't say anything about the garderobe, cabinet or
> > pissoir.
> >
> > -- 
> > -- Jadwiga Zajaczkowa,
> 
> No, Jadwiga, he referred to the privy, which always used to be the little
> shack with the crescent moon on the door.
> 
> Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary
> 
> Main Entry: 2privy
> Function: noun
> Inflected Form(s): plural priv·ies
> 1 a : a small building having a bench with holes through which the user may
> defecate or urinate b : TOILET 3b
> 2 : a person having a legal interest of privity
> 
> Saint Phlip,
> CoD
> COMMENT
> Well, if you are unable  to check refrences in Shakespear, or Marlow, or the Paston Letters, or
> Froissart, or Chaucer, or Caxton, or Wynkyn de Word, - before commenting upon early-Middle
> English, - at least try looking at the current edition of Chamber's Dictionary -  1998 Edition,
> page 1308, - viz - <"Privy" [adjective] private, or belonging to a particular person; own;
> personal, for private use;secret [of a place, 7c]appropriate to withdrawal or
> retirement....&c....&c >". 
> The Concise Oxford Dictionary has a very similar [but not identical entry], page 972 of my 1964
> Edition
> The "Chamber's" entry has 8 closely-printed lines  and only one of those - the last - quotes
> privy as meaning a toilet. - a meaning which - while old, is post-Mediaeval.
> I would respectfully add a reminder that words changed their meanings; so quotes on their
> meanings have to relate to the Period of the text in which they were/are used; for what was a
> correct meaning for one Century may be obsolete usage 200 years later.
> Please don't start a "flame war" on this one - let's keep it light-hearted.
> 
> 
> 
> Yours in service, 
> Julian Wilson,
> [aka. Messire Matthew Baker/Matthieu Besquer, Governor & Castellan of Jersey, 1486-1497: - "Si
> vis pacem, para bellum"]
> late-medieval Re-enactor; & Historian and Master Artisan to  
> "The Companie of the Duke's Leopards",
> [the only medieval living-history Group
> in "olde" Jersey]
> 		
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