different between stool vs thunderbox

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /stu?l/
• Rhymes: -u?l

Etymology 1

From Middle English stool, stole, stol, from Old English st?l (“chair, seat, throne”), from Proto-Germanic *st?laz (“chair”) (compare West Frisian stoel, Dutch stoel, German Stuhl, Swedish/Norwegian/Danish stol, Finnish tuoli, Estonian tool), from Proto-Indo-European *stoh?los (compare Lithuanian stálas, Russian ???? (stol, “table”), Russian ???? (stul, “chair”), Serbo-Croatian stol (“table”), Slovene stol (“chair”), Albanian kështallë (“crutch”), Ancient Greek ????? (st?l?, “block of stone used as a prop or buttress to a wall”)), from *steh?- (“to stand”). More at stand.

The medical use derives from sense 2 (seat used for defecation).

Noun

stool (countable and uncountable, plural stools)

1. A seat, especially for one person and without armrests.
   1. A seat for one person without a back or armrests.
   2. A footstool.
   3. (now chiefly dialectal, Scotland) A seat with a back; a chair.
   4. (now chiefly dialectal, Scotland, literally and figuratively) A throne.
2. (obsolete) A close-stool; a seat used for urination and defecation: a chamber pot, commode, outhouse seat, or toilet.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:chamber pot, Thesaurus:toilet, Thesaurus:bathroom

3. (horticulture) A plant that has been cut down until its main stem is close to the ground, resembling a stool, to promote new growth.
4. (chiefly medicine) Feces, excrement.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:feces
5. (chiefly medicine) A production of feces or excrement, an act of defecation, stooling.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:defecation
6. (archaic) A decoy; a portable piece of wood to which a pigeon is fastened to lure wild birds.
7. (nautical) A small channel on the side of a vessel, for the deadeyes of the backstays.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Totten to this entry?)

8. (US, dialect) Material, such as oyster shells, spread on the sea bottom for oyster spat to adhere to.

Derived terms

Translations

See also

• chair
• seat

Verb

stool (third-person singular simple present stools, present participle stooling, simple past and past participle stooled)

1. (chiefly medicine) To produce stool: to defecate.
2. (horticulture) To cut down (a plant) until its main stem is close to the ground, resembling a stool, to promote new growth.

Synonyms

• See Thesaurus:defecate

Etymology 2

Latin stolo. See stolon.

Noun

stool (plural stools)

1. A plant from which layers are propagated by bending its branches into the soil.

Verb

stool (third-person singular simple present stools, present participle stooling, simple past and past participle stooled)

1. (agriculture) To ramify; to tiller, as grain; to shoot out suckers.
   • 1869, Richard D. Blackmore, Lorna Doone, chapter 38:

     I worked very hard in the copse of young ash, with my billhook and a shearing-knife; cutting out the saplings where they stooled too close together, making spars to keep for thatching, wall-crooks to drive into the cob, stiles for close sheep hurdles, and handles for rakes, and hoes, and two-bills, of the larger and straighter stuff.

References

Anagrams

• loots, lotos, sloot, sotol, tools, tosol

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /stul/

Noun

stool m or f (plural stools)

1. (Canada, slang, derogatory) A denouncer or whistleblower; a stoolie.

Derived terms

• stooleux

English

Etymology

thunder +? box; in the sense of a toilet, presumed to be because of the noises that may be made while using it, especially while defecating.

Pronunciation

Noun

thunderbox (plural thunderboxes)

1. (historical) A close-stool, a stool enclosing a chamber pot.
2. (Britain, Australia, slang) An outhouse or latrine: a rudimentary outdoor toilet.
   • 1974 June 13, Donald Gould, "A Groundling?s Notebook: Ice Waterloo" in the New Scientist, page 708:

     Meantime the ICE experts are poring over their photographs, and making measurements, which, presumably, will go into a computer, and out will come the specification for the perfect thunderbox.

   • 1979, The Bulletin, Vol. 100, page 35:

     In the old days, when there was a corrugated iron thunderbox, the Holts? guests were told to approach it with caution: where other thunderboxes had redback spiders, the local ones tended to have taipans.

   • 2005, Benedict le Vay, Eccentric Britain, 2nd, page 57:

     He boobytrapped the ‘thunderbox’ and the next guardsman who sat down was met by a deafening blast. The guardsman and plastic loo seat were hurled one way, the loo paper another, but there were no injuries.
3. A box of metal balls used to create a thunder sound effect.

   Synonym: thunder run

   • 1991, Inger Mattsson, Gustavian opera (page 101)

     At a given signal they are allowed to drop to the floor with a crash, followed by loud peal of thunder from the thunderbox.

Synonyms

• (close-stool): commode; see also Thesaurus:chamber pot
• (outhouse): See Thesaurus:toilet and Thesaurus:bathroom