Toilet paper has been top of shopping lists for weeks, but where did the term originate?

Type “toilet” into a search engine and top suggestions include “toilet paper”, “toilet paper online” and “toilet paper for sale”. Our new world order – if stockpiling worldwide is an indicator – involves rolls of 3- or 4-ply soft white paper.

The word “toilet” originally referred to a piece of cloth serving as a covering or bag for clothes or nightclothes (16th and 17th centuries), or placed over the shoulders during shaving or hairdressing (17th century). Its origins lay in Middle French toilette, diminutive of toile (“cloth, net”), with the English word continuing to be influenced by develop­ments in French.

Toilet also referred to a cloth cover for a dressing table, formerly often of rich material and workmanship, to the dressing table itself, and to the articles used in applying make-up, arranging the hair and dressing (17th to 19th centuries).

This last meaning is still found in words such as “toiletries” and “toilet water”, the latter from French eau de toilette, for a lightly scented, dilute perfume.

The meaning of toilet extended to encompass the whole process of washing, grooming and dressing, especially at the beginning of the day or for a special occasion: phrases included “at one’s toilet” or “to make one’s toilet” – personal grooming, in other words.

The washing sense of toilet applied to non-human entities, too (animals, places, tools (19th and 20th centuries), and to cleansing after surgeries.

The word is still used in a medical context, such as “toilet of the wound”. In the late 1800s, it also referred to the preparation of the neck – by cutting hair or collar – for execution, usually by guillotine.

“Toilet” then extended, by association, to refer to the room in which one made one’s toilet. In the 1700s, with the advent of the flushing water closet (now abbreviated to WC), “toilet” came to refer euphemistically to the room in which it was typically placed, originating in the United States; although “bathroom” and “restroom” are now more common in North America.

In mid-20th century Britain, saying “toilet” indexed speakers as “non-U”, that is, not upper class; the U term would be “lavatory”, from late Latin lavatorium (“place for washing”).

“Toilet paper” is attested from 1877, with “toilet roll” (chiefly British) from 1881; until the early 1900s, these were mostly documented in sundries lists and advertisements.

Too much toilet talk? Imagine: if we had retained the Middle English equivalent – for the bunch of straw used to wipe one’s behind – we’d be searching for arse-wisps.