close-stool

plural close-stools · alternative close stoole · alternative close stool · alternative closestool

1. historicalA chamber pot enclosed in a stool or box; a commode.

   other Princes, […] to dispatch their weightiest affaires make often their close stoole, their regall Throne or Councel-chamber

   , Folio Society. 2006, p.17

   3 more examples

   […] be careful and diligent to all strangers, and see that they lack nothing in their Chambers, which your Mistress or Lady will allow, and that your close stools and Chamber pots be duely emptied, and kept clean and sweet.

   1677, Hannah Woolley, The Compleat Servant-Maid, London: T. Passinger, page 166

   […] being apprised of their ambush, I got home another way, and by the help of my landlord’s apprentice, emptied a close stool out of the garret window, which did great execution upon them […]

   1748, Tobias Smollett, chapter 6, in The Adventures of Roderick Random, volume 1, London: J. Osborn, page 32

   "No more midnight treks to the outhouse. No more close-stools or thundermugs a feature of even the most exalted houses in Armethalieh."

   2003, Mercedes Lackey/James Mallory, The Outstretched Shadow