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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

loo.

A lavatory: a room used for urination and defecation.

3 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/luː/UK/lu/US
  1. A lavatory: a room used for urination and defecation.

    Commonwealth · Ireland · UK
  2. A toilet: a fixture used for urination and defecation.

    Commonwealth · Ireland · UK
Where this word comes from

Uncertain, although usually derived in some way from Waterloo, the site of Wellington's 1815 victory over Napoleon, likely via a pun based on water closet. Other suggested derivations include corruptions of French l'eau (“water”), lieu (“place”), lieux d'aisances (“'places of convenience': a lavatory”), lieu à l'anglaise (“'English place': a British-style lavatory”), bordalou (“a diminutive chamber pot”) or gardez l'eau (“'mind the water'”), via Scots gardyloo, formerly used in Edinburgh while emptying chamber pots out of windows; the supposed use of "Room 100" as the lavatory in Continental hotels; a popularisation of lew, a regional corruption of lee (“downwind”), in reference to shepherds' privies or the former use of beakheads on that side of the ship for urination and defecation; or a clipped form of the name of the unpopular 19th-century Countess of Lichfield Lady Harriett Georgiana Louisa Hamilton Anson, who was the subject of an 1867 prank whereby her bedroom's name-card was placed on the door to the lavatory, prompting the other guests to begin speaking of "going to Lady Louisa".

intj/luː/UK/lu/US
  1. A cry to urge on hunting dogs.

Where this word comes from

Clipped form of halloo.

verb/luː/UK/lu/US
  1. To urge on with cries of loo or (figuratively) by other shouting or outcry.

    dialectal
Where this word comes from

Clipped form of halloo.

noun/luː/UK/lu/US
  1. Alternative form of lanterloo: the card game.

    alt-of · alternative · uncountable
  2. The penalty paid to the pool in lanterloo for breaking certain rules or failing to take a trick.

    uncountable
  3. An act that prompts such a penalty.

    uncountable
  4. A game of lanterloo.

    uncountable
  5. Any group of people.

    figuratively · uncountable
Where this word comes from

Clipped form of lanterloo.

verb/luː/UK/lu/US
  1. To beat in the card game lanterloo.

    transitive
  2. To pay a penalty to the pool for breaking certain rules or failing to take a trick in lanterloo.

  3. To pay any penalty to any community.

    dialectal · figuratively
Where this word comes from

Clipped form of lanterloo.

noun/luː/UK/lu/US
  1. A half-mask, particularly (historical) those velvet half-masks fashionable in the 17th century as a means of protecting women's complexion from the sun.

    obsolete
Where this word comes from

From French loup (“wolf; mask, eyemask”). Doublet of lobo, lupus, and wolf.

noun/luː/UK/lu/US
  1. A hot dust-bearing wind found in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and the Punjab.

    India
Where this word comes from

From Hindi लू (lū), ultmately from Sanskrit उल्का (ulkā, “flame”).

noun/luː/UK/lu/US
  1. A lieutenant.

    US · slang
Where this word comes from

Clipped form of lieutenant.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.