Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also carse, carser) a house.

1873		Sl. Dict. 361: I will call at your carser on Sunday.
1881		Newcastle Courant 25 Nov. 6: Who’d have thought the omee of the carsey would have taken it into his noddle to come home.
1891		F.W. Carew Autobiog. of a Gipsey 416: It ended by my doin’ little snakesman for my nibs and back-jumpin’ the carsey.
1893		P.H. Emerson Signor Lippo 45: The omer of the carsey is coming in a few cock linnets.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 15: Carser, a house.
1899		A. Binstead Houndsditch Day by Day 117: Dr Johnson’s old carser has been swep’ away.
a.1903		C. Seel ‘Four Flights Up’ 🎵 There’s only one chair in the carsey.
a.1909		press cutting in J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era 65/1: If you’re a bank director and broken up a thousand carsers of poor honest people, that’s the time to do a guy. [Ibid.] 256/2: Vardy the carsey (Criminal). Italian. Look at the house.
2019		P. Baker Fabulosa 290/1: carsey, karsey 1. a house.

2. a brothel.

1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 159: [...] a brothel. Syn: carsey (Brit gay sl).
1984		Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 185/2: C.19–20.
2019		P. Baker Fabulosa 290/1: carsey, karsey [...] 3. a brothel.

3. a thieves’ den.

1984

Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 185/2: C.19–20.

4. (also carse) a public house.

1881		Newcastle Courant 2 Dec. 6/6: One of us oughter go to the Carsey and palaver Nell as to how things are going.
1893		P.H. Emerson Signor Lippo 52: Shall we go and have a shanty when the carsey opens?
1906		O.C. Malvery Soul Market 40: Why, we’ve nobbed four carses and only touched for a sprarzer.

5. (also cahsy, carsi, carzy, cawsy, karzi, karzie, karzy, kazi, kharzi, khazi) a lavatory; occas. attrib. use, e.g. carsey paper.

1932		G.S. Moncrieff Café Bar 236: Everyone commenting unfavourably on the smell – poufy, like a cahsy, mucking drain.
1937		J. Curtis There Ain’t No Justice 115–6: I seen better things than him down the pans of public carsies.
1944		C. Fluck ‘Bubbles’ of the Old Kent Road 25: After a while he got up and went to the carsey.
1957		G. Kersh Fowlers End (2001) 190: A copper electrode in the carsey wired up to the generator — nothing conducts electricity like water. Stream o’ pee is as good as a cable.
1958		C. Lee diary 10 May in Eight Bells & Top Masts (2001) 117: It was no good saying I had to go to the khazi, because I’d just been.
1958		(con. 1940s) B. Behan Borstal Boy 161: I’ll take you down the cawsy.
1960		J. Franklyn Dict. of Rhy. Sl. 93/2: I woke up wiv a marf like a carsey an’ I couldn’t lift me lump-o’-lead orf da titwillow to git at the fisherman’s.
1961		T. Taylor Baron’s Court All Change (2011) 26: I managed to stagger out to the carzy.
1962		F. Norman Guntz 195: Long streamers of karzy paper hanging down.
1967		J. Burke Till Death Us Do Part 84: Blimey, have you seen the carsy? Just a bucket with a seat on top.
1972		Galton & Simpson ‘Divided We Stand’ Steptoe and Son [TV script] We’re not putting flock wallpaper in the khazi.
1974		‘P.B. Yuill’ Hazell Plays Solomon (1976) 24: I [...] went to the carsi, kept my eyes on a short leash as I passed the plush bar in the lounge.
1976		(ref. to 1940s) R. Barnes Coronation Cups and Jam Jars 116: Whenever I went out to the carsey, I couldn’t resist poking it.
1979		F. Norman Too Many Crooks Spoil the Caper 19: I left the office twenty minutes later with bits of karzie paper stuck to four or five nicks on my chin.
1982		J. Sullivan ‘Ashes to Ashes’ Only Fools and Horses [TV script] If that soppy old git’s broken it I’ll stick his head down the khazi!
1983		A. Payne ‘Senior Citizen Caine’ Minder [TV script] 53: I bet going to the kharzi is a challenging experience.
1984		B. Ellem Doing Time 187: carzy: toilet, lavatory.
1984		Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 185/2: from ca. 1870.
1985		S. Berkoff West in Decadence and Other Plays (1985) 110: I got to the karzi / full of geezers doing their barnets.
1989		J. Morton Lowspeak 35: Carsi – lavatory.
1992		M. Frayn Now You Know 108: Put all her whatsits down the karzy?
1998		N. Palmer ‘Vegan Reich’ in Home Suspect Device 18: Chris guided the flat-bed lorry carrying half a dozen portable kazis into position.
1999		N. Cohn Yes We have No 224: They’d walk into the khazi to take a whiz.
2000		J.J. Connolly Layer Cake 82: I ain’t gonna say anything about the business in the khazi.
2007		N. ‘Razor’ Smith Raiders 50: There was a lucrative deal involving four ounces of snout going down in the khazi.
2010		W. Ings ‘Trolling the Beat to Working the Soob’ in Int’l Jrnl Lexicog. 23:1 64: In the carsey (toilet), a cubicle door was called a trade curtain.
2011		J.J. Connolly Viva La Madness 405: Dougie keeps popping off to the khazi for fat rails.
2020		Twitter 26 Sept. 🌐 It’s the men throwing g grannies, women & kids over their shoulders to get 8 dozen Karzi rolls.
2023		R. Milward Man-Eating Typewriter 37: The absence of an outside khazi.

6. (also karzee, karzi, kazi, khazi) any messy or otherwise unappealing place.

1934		P. Allingham Cheapjack 37: Get out o’ Southend just as soon as you can. Of all the bloomin’ carsies I’ve ever struck this ’ere takes some beating.
1963–74		B. Humphries Barry McKenzie [comic strip] in Complete Barry McKenzie (1988) 24: This grotty leftist karzee could become a second cellar.
1982		J. Sullivan ‘It Never Rains’ Only Fools and Horses [TV script] I was just wondering if [...] you could pull a few strings and get my old Grandad out of this khazi?
1985		S. Berkoff West in Decadence and Other Plays (1985) 99: The West End’s now a karzi.
1994		Indep. Mag. 6 Aug. 16: Hackney dog track was a dump, a kazi.
2007		N. ‘Razor’ Smith Raiders 129: Dartmoor [...] another brutal khazi.
2023		R. Milward Man-Eating Typewriter 233: ‘The bed-sitter’s a cateve khazi’.