Where does “toilet” come from?
Toilet comes from French toilette, diminutive of French toile meaning cloth, from Latin tela meaning woven fabric, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European teḱ- meaning to weave.
toilet (English): A covering of linen, silk, or tapestry, spread...
Definitions
- A covering of linen, silk, or tapestry, spread...
Ancestry of “toilet”, step by step
toilet traces back through two separate lines of ancestry.
via French toilette
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | French | toilette | toilet; the toilet, lavatory |
| 2 | French | Toile | Web; World Wide Web |
| 3 | Old French | toile | fabric; web |
| 4 | Old French | teile | Alternative form of toile |
| 5 | Latin | tēla | web |
| 6 | Old Dutch | tegela | — |
| 7 | Proto-Germanic | *tigulā | — |
| 8 | Proto-Germanic | tigulǭ | tile; brick |
| 9 | Latin | tēgula | a large, flat and heavy roof tile used in an overlapping formation with the curved and smaller imbrex |
| 10 | Latin | tegō | to cover; to clothe |
| 11 | Proto-Italic | tegō | cover |
| 12 | Proto-Indo-European | (s)teg- | to cover; pole, stick, beam |