Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A night-stool, or some convenience of that kind, in which the feces are received and covered by dry earth.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun a small building with a bench having holes through which a user can defecate.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a small outbuilding with a bench having holes through which a user can defecate

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

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Examples

  • But you quaint little people with your bonnets and breeches, your horse buggies, your archaic dialect and your earth-closet privies, you enrich our lives.

    The God Delusion Dawkins, Richard, 1941- 2006

  • It was a slate-roofed, long, low building covered with white-washed rough-cast and it had a stone wall along one side of its yard with a gap in it to give access to a small building of quarried stone which was half woodshed and half earth-closet.

    The Murder of Busy Lizzie Mitchell, Gladys, 1901-1983 1973

  • I have recently concluded an experiment of six years 'duration, the result of which seems to show that this objection to the adoption of the earth-closet system may be set aside, or at least reduced to such proportions as to make it unimportant.

    Village Improvements and Farm Villages 1865

  • The earth-closet was invented by the Rev. Henry Moule, vicar of

    Village Improvements and Farm Villages 1865

  • Extended experience in small villages and public institutions seems to confirm his view, that, if the earth-closet is to be adopted by towns, they cannot depend either on farmers buying the manure, or undertaking the labor of supplying and removing it.

    Village Improvements and Farm Villages 1865

  • The public reports of sanitary officers in England, who have investigated the subject to its foundation, fully confirm every thing that has been claimed by the advocates of the earth-closet, unless perhaps in connection with the incidental question of the value of the product as a manure.

    Village Improvements and Farm Villages 1865

  • As was the case with the other paths, it will be greatly to his advantage to stake it out and remove about four inches of the surface-soil, piling it near the stable to be used for composting purposes or in the earth-closet.

    The Home Acre Edward Payson Roe 1863

  • It is clear from these facts that any earth-closet manure a farmer would be likely to purchase in the city has not a very high value.

    Talks on Manures A Series of Familiar and Practical Talks Between the Author and the Deacon, the Doctor, and other Neighbors, on the Whole Subject Joseph Harris 1860

  • But I feel sure that those of us having rich clay land containing, in an inert form, as much nitrogen and phosphoric acid as Dr. Vœlcker found in the soil to be used in the earth-closet at Wakefield, can well afford to stir it freely, and expose it to the disintegrating and decomposing action of the atmosphere.

    Talks on Manures A Series of Familiar and Practical Talks Between the Author and the Deacon, the Doctor, and other Neighbors, on the Whole Subject Joseph Harris 1860

  • A description of the earth-closet will be given in another chapter relating to tenement-houses for the poor in large cities.

    American Woman's Home Harriet Beecher Stowe 1853

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