powder room
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Forms: form: powder rooms
Etymology: In reference to lavatories, an indirection developed under the influence of powder one's nose (“euphemism for use a toilet”). Compare boudoir.
Senses: examples: text: If you'll excuse me, I need to visit the powder room to see a man about a dog.
text: They are the authors of the small powder room in the Hofbrau House at Broadway and Fifty-third Street, New York, a very modern creation.
ref: 1927, E.A. Park, chapter IX, in New Backgrounds for a New Age, page 173:
text: There are separate lavatories for ladies and gentlemen in each coach and the provision of a special powder room for ladies in the first class is an entirely new feature.
ref: 1957 April 24, “British Railways Prototype Coaches”, in Railway Magazine, page 243:
text: Whispers in the powder room / She cries on every tune
ref: 1988, Womack & Womack, “Teardrops”:
synonyms: word: powder closet
word: bathroom
word: latrine
word: necessarium
word: toilet
word: toilet room
word: urinal
word: water closet
word: WC
word: cloaca
word: closet
word: jacques
word: kocay
word: siege
word: cludgie
word: neddy
word: netty
word: shield
word: six
word: facilities
word: ladies and gentlemen
word: lavatory
word: lavabo
word: necessary
word: necessary room
word: office
word: office of ease
word: place
word: potty
word: privy
word: small room
word: smallest room
word: throne room
word: cottage
word: geography
word: House of Lords
word: khazi
word: usual offices
word: restroom
word: teahouse
word: tearoom
word: washroom
raw_tags: used in Canada
word: closet of decency
word: closet of ease
word: house of office
word: necessary place
word: purging place
word: vault
word: withdraught
word: wardrobe
word: shitter
word: urination station
word: bog
word: carsey
word: crapper
word: karzy
word: lats
word: lav
word: lavvy
word: loo
word: thunderbox
raw_tags: in Australia
word: can
word: john
word: johnny
word: bogger
word: brasco
word: dike
raw_tags: in New Zealand
word: dunny
raw_tags: in New Zealand
word: jacks
word: jakes
word: ladies' room
extra: a lavatory intended for use by women
glosses: Synonym of ladies' room: a lavatory intended for use by women.
examples: text: The house — four stories high and 22 feet wide — has five bedrooms, three full bathrooms and a powder room, along with three fireplaces and a finished basement with a gym and laundry.
ref: 2025 October 28, Vivian Marino, “Lily Allen and David Harbour List Their Brooklyn Brownstone”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC:
glosses: Synonym of half bath: a small room with a toilet and sink but no bathtub or shower.
synonyms: word: half bath
extra: a small room with a toilet and sink but no bathtub or shower
examples: text: Are you insane? Don't take a candle into the powder room!
text: Mutiny is a thing of the fatallest nature in all enterprises whatsoever; a thing so incalculable, swift-frightful; not to be dealt with in fright. But mutiny in a Robespierre Convention, above all,—it is like fire seen sputtering in the ship’s powder-room!
ref: 1837, Thomas Carlyle, “To Finish the Terror”, in The French Revolution: A History […], volume III (The Guillotine), London: James Fraser, […], →OCLC, book VI (Thermidor):
synonyms: powder magazine
glosses: A room used to store gunpowder, particularly (historical) on a ship equipped with cannon.
glosses: A room used to powder hair and wigs.
Related terms: powder one's nose
take a powder