Dunnakin

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A dialect word for an outdoor toilet, usually a simple privy standing apart from the house
2. A slang term, chiefly regional, for a lavatory or privy built outside a dwelling
3. An old-fashioned colloquial name for a toilet, especially a basic one located outdoors

Etymology: "Dunnakin" is a Scots and northern English word for an outdoor privy, a small shed set apart from the house. Its first half comes from "danna," an obsolete slang word for excrement, and the second half is "kin" or "ken," a pejorative term for a house. Put together, the name amounts to something like "shit-house," a blunt label that shows how plainly earlier speakers named the place where waste was kept. The word is a variant of "dunnekin," and the two forms share the same construction. Because the source ties the first element to a slang term rather than to a more formal root, the word belongs to the earthy, colloquial stratum of dialect vocabulary instead of the polite language of household architecture. The "-kin" ending, which appears in many dialect words for small or lowly things, gives the compound a diminutive, slightly contemptuous ring.