Donniker

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An informal, slang word for a toilet, especially an outdoor lavatory in some English-speaking regions
2. A casual colloquial term for a lavatory, used mainly in Australian and other informal speech
3. Slang referring to a toilet, typically a basic outdoor privy in informal English usage

Etymology: "Donniker" is American slang for a toilet, and its origin is a mystery in the strict sense: no one has traced it to a documented source. The word appears in print from the 1920s onward, most famously in the hobo and tramp slang of the era, where it sat among a cluster of terms for lavatories and the places travelers used them. It is recorded in the 1930s by writers who collected underworld and vagrant vocabulary, which is where most of what we know about its use comes from. The leading explanations rest on guesswork rather than evidence. Some have linked it to a proper name, as if a person called Donnicker gave his name to a privy, but no such figure can be identified. Others have tried to connect it to older slang or to words borrowed from other languages, yet these connections do not survive close comparison in dates or meaning. Lexicographers generally record the word as of unknown origin, and that is the honest account of it.

Synonyms: toilet, lavatory, loo