Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A seat for the sick or infirm, comprising a tight box with a close-fitting lid to contain a chamber-vessel.

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

  • noun A utensil to hold a chamber vessel, for the use of the sick and infirm. It is usually in the form of a box, with a seat and tight cover.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun historical A chamber pot enclosed in a stool or box; a commode.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

close (“enclosed”) +‎ stool

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Examples

  • What clothes the senators did wear in Rome, what shoes, how they sat, where they went to the close-stool, how many dishes in a mess, what sauce, which for the present for an historian to relate, [733] according to Lodovic.

    Anatomy of Melancholy 2007

  • By which means it comes to pass, [83] that not only libraries and shops are full of our putrid papers, but every close-stool and jakes,

    Anatomy of Melancholy 2007

  • Trimalchio retired to the close-stool, after this course, and we, having freedom of action with the tyrant away, began to draw the other guests out.

    Satyricon 2007

  • The two factions send to him a solemn deputation; and the dalai-lama begins, according to his divine custom, by distributing among them the contents of his close-stool.

    A Philosophical Dictionary 2007

  • He traces his itinerary in England - memorably tracking his movements "like an animal, by his droppings", thanks to purchases of cotton for Henry's close-stool, "to wipe the nether end" - and recounts his journeys to pagan Lithuania on crusade and to Jerusalem as a pilgrim with descriptive relish.

    Review of The Fears of Henry IV: The Life of England's Self-Made King by Ian Mortimer 2007

  • Everything's ready outside, if the call's more serious, water, close-stool, and anything else you'll need.

    Satyricon 2007

  • He traces his itinerary in England - memorably tracking his movements "like an animal, by his droppings", thanks to purchases of cotton for Henry's close-stool, "to wipe the nether end" - and recounts his journeys to pagan Lithuania on crusade and to Jerusalem as a pilgrim with descriptive relish.

    Archive 2007-08-01 2007

  • Macalpine made a soldierly retreat with two horses; but the captain was suddenly surrounded and disarmed by the footmen, whom a French valet de chambre headed in this exploit; his sword was passed through a close-stool, and his person through the horse-pond.

    The Expedition of Humphry Clinker 2004

  • You will be scraped out of the painted cloth for this: your lion, that holds his poll-axe sitting on a close-stool, will be given to Ajax: he will be the ninth Worthy.

    Love’s Labour ’s Lost 2004

  • Vespasian died in a jest upon his close-stool — Galba with a sentence — Septimus Severus in a dispatch — Tiberius in dissimulation, and Caesar Augustus in a compliment. —

    The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman 2003

Comments

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  • Citation on stercoraceous.

    January 3, 2009

  • (noun) - A chamber utensil enclosed in a stool or box.

    --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1893

    January 17, 2018