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See also: Jakes and Jakeš



Alternative formsEdit


From Middle English Jake (variant of “Jack) or Jakke (variant of “Jacques” and “Jack). Use as a place to urinate and defecate first attested in the form jacques.[1] Compare terms such as US slang Cousin John and Quincy, used as euphemistic personifications the speaker was "visiting".




jakes (usually uncountable, plural jakeses)

  1. plural of jake in its various senses.
  2. (now chiefly Ireland) A place to urinate and defecate: an outhouse or lavatory.
    • c. 1605,, William Shakespeare, King Lear, Act II, Scene 2,[1]
      My lord, if you’ll give me leave, I will tread this unbolted villain into mortar and daub the walls of a jakes with him.
    • 1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, Dublin: John Smith, Volume 1, Book 6, Chapter 1, p. 269,[2]
      [] Whereas the Truth-finder, having raked out that Jakes his own Mind, and being there capable of tracing no Ray of Divinity, nor any thing virtuous, or good, or lovely, or loving, very fairly, honestly, and logically concludes, that no such things exist in the whole Creation.
    • 1994, Derek Beaven, Newton’s Niece, Fourth Estate, 1999, p. 8,
      And the treasures of the floor and walls went raw into the jakeses from my brush and dustpan: sludges, geodes, hair, dead insects and arachnidae, a rubber glove and tainted paper waste, a mouse's skull and tail, a set of used plasters, []
Derived termsEdit



  1. Third-person singular simple present indicative form of jake: to play a form of prank


  1. ^ "jakes, n." in the Oxford English Dictionary (1900), Oxford: Oxford University Press.