DCHP-2

washroom wash-room DCHP-2 (June 2016)

• n.

  a public toilet (see Images 1 and 2).

  Type: 5. Frequency — Canadians use washroom to mean "public toilet" approximately 50% of the time (Boberg 2005, Boberg 2010: 116). This usage contrasts with the American "restroom" or "bathroom" or the British "lavatory", "loo", "WC", "toilet", or the more archaic "cloakroom". Though "bathroom" is quite widely used in Canada, this term usually refers to a room in a private dwelling (that usually includes a bathtub). It is conceivable that the high frequency of washroom is a preservation from an earlier more widespread North American form that, originally, may have referred to a room for actually washing one's hands and face, or even a place where one could take a bath (see, e.g., the 1864 and 1869 quotations). OED-3 lists its first attestation from 1806 Massachusetts and labels the term "chiefly N. Amer.". As Chart 1 shows, the term is most frequently used in Canada.
  The term is one of the most widely recognized Canadianisms and can be found in most popular lists of Canadian terms and meanings for many decades back (see, e.g., the 1977 quotation).
  See also COD-2, s.v. "washroom" (1), which is marked "esp. Cdn", not labelled in Gage-5 and ITP Nelson.

  • Today's spelling is universally washroom, never wash room (see the 1880 quotation) or the more widespread 19th-century form wash-room (see the earliest quotations below).