Toilet (room)

These rooms are typically referred to in North America as half-bathrooms (half-baths; half of a whole or full-bathroom) in a private residence.

"Lavatory" (from the Latin lavatorium, "wash basin" or "washroom")[5] was common in the 19th century and is still broadly understood, although it is taken as quite formal in American English, and more often refers to public toilets in Britain.

Some forms of jargon have their own terms for toilets, including "lavatory" on commercial airplanes, "head" on ships,[12] and "latrine" in military contexts.

A sink (hand basin), with soap, is usually present in the room or immediately outside it, to ensure easy handwashing.

Into the modern era, humans typically practised open defecation or employed latrines or outhouses over a pit toilet in rural areas and used chamber pots emptied into streets or drains in urban ones.

The Indus Valley civilization had particularly advanced sanitation, which included common use of private flush toilets.

The ancient Greeks and Romans had public toilets and, in some cases, indoor plumbing connected to rudimentary sewer systems.

[17][18] In the early modern period, "night soil" from municipal outhouses became an important source of nitrates for creating gunpowder.

[22] In 1876 Edward William Godwin, a progressive architect-designer, drew up affordable housing with the toilet in the bathroom, and faced criticism for it.

[31] In France,[30][32] Japan,[33][34] and some other countries,[14] separate toilets remain the norm for reasons of hygiene and privacy.

In Japan, the toilet sometimes has a built-in sink (whose waste water is used for the next flush) to allow users to clean themselves immediately.