jakes n.1
1. a lavatory; occas. in sing.
![]() | Play of Love in Farmer Dramatic Writings (1905) 182: My lady, your leman, one undertakes / To be safe from fire by slipping through a jakes. | |
![]() | Erasmus’ Apophthegms (1564) Bk I 117: He shoulde after comming from the iakes, put his servaunt to the office of wyping his taile. | (trans.)|
![]() | Disobedient Child Bi: Wylt thou then [...] let thy youth unhonestly be spent And do as poor knaues, which Jaxes do scoure. | |
![]() | ‘To Iulius Florus’ in | Poems of Horace (1656) 373: Anon I meet a Sow out of a Jakes.|
![]() | Gammer Gurton’s Needle in (1997) III iii: Thou slut, thou cut, thou rakes, thou jakes, will not shame make thee hide? | |
![]() | ‘Bashe Libel’ in May & Bryson Verse Libel 80: A man that had good list to shight / Might make his neck a noble jakes / And down his throat by gobbes and flakes / The durt must fall into his guttes. | |
![]() | Metamorphosis of Ajax C5: Arrius that notable hereticke, came to his miserable end vpon a iakes. [...] The great brass sluice [...] sent it down a gallop into the Jax. | |
![]() | Dobson’s Dry Bobs M3: An old Jakes [...] wherein they used to throwe all their filthy dust and sweepings. | |
![]() | Ram-Alley IV i: Nor can a citty common Iakes, Which all mens Breeches vndertakes, Yeeld fasting stomakes such a sauour, As doth his breath and vgly fauour. | |
![]() | A reply to Dr. Mortons generall Defence 65: [T]his habit of a garland vvas used in most base places, as playes, stewes, jakes &c. | |
![]() | Hexapla in Genesin & Exodum 308: [A] Jew, that being fallen into a jakes, refused to be taken out thence upon their Sabbath day. | |
![]() | The Wandering Jew 19: My sonne sweares he had rather thrust his head into a Jakes, than peepe into my chamber. | |
![]() | Merry Passages and Jeasts No. 184 63: Sir John Heydon used to say, that he had rather fall into a Jakes then my faire Lady Caryes foule mouth. | |
![]() | Virgil Travestie (1765) Bk IV 95: Thou here thyself most busy makes, / In building for the Queen a Jakes. | |
![]() | Poems on Several Occasions (1680) 130: Or (if I may ordain a Fate more fit) / For such foul, nasty Excrements of Wit, / May they, condemn’d, to th’ publick Jakes, be sent. | ‘Upon the Author of a Play call’d Sodom’ in Rochester|
![]() | Sir Courtly Nice II i: A gold-finder, madam? look into jakes for bits o’ money? | |
![]() | Juvenal III 35: From thence return’d, their sordid Avarice rakes In Excrements again, and hires the Jakes. | |
![]() | Dispensary iv 45: So when Perfumes their fragrant Scent give o’re, Nought can their Odour, like a Jakes, restore. | |
![]() | Bumography 16: Let’s loose the comon Sewer of her Brain, Which like a Jakes, or Sink, had lain. | |
![]() | Erasmus’ Colloquies 199: [in fig. use] When I was at Rome, I empty’d the whole Jakes of my Sins into the Bosom of a Confessor. | (trans.)|
![]() | Dunciad I 7: Here all his suff’ring brotherhood retire, And ’scape the martyrdom of jakes and fire. | |
![]() | Grobianus 266: It gave so rank, so redolent a Smell, As wou’d a Boghouse or a Jakes excel. | |
![]() | Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (1985) 15: An out-mouth from two more properly tushes than teeth, livid lips, and a breath like a jakes. | |
![]() | The Tricks of the Town Laid Open (4 edn) 69: A Bawdyhouse! why ’tis [...] more to be avoided by far than a Jakes or a Pesthouse. | |
, , | ![]() | Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Jakes, a house of office, a cacatorium. |
![]() | Shrove Tuesday 53: I trembled when he met my mental eye, / Like fraudful Hucksters when their weights are tried! [...] Or Spaniels when they’re screwing out a jakes! | |
![]() | Works (1801) V 453: Balm from a bog, and dinners from a J-kes! | ‘Epistle to Count Rumford’|
![]() | Lex. Balatronicum [as cit. 1785]. | |
![]() | Gloss. (1888) I 13: ajax Sir John Harington, in 1596, published his celebrated tract, called ‘The Metamorphosis of ajax’, by which he meant the improvement of a jakes, or necessary, by forming it into what we now call a water-closet, of which Sir John was clearly the inventor. | |
![]() | Folk-Phrases of Four Counties 39: A privy, jakes. | |
![]() | DN II:i 43: jake, n. Water-closet for men. | ‘College Words and Phrases’ in|
![]() | Ulysses 66: He kicked open the crazy door of the jakes. | |
![]() | (con. 1914–18) Songs and Sl. of the British Soldier. | |
![]() | Flesh Peddlers (1964) 287: Oh, whistle when you use the jake. There are no locks on the door. | |
![]() | All Looks Yellow to the Jaundiced Eye 50: You’d be right in thinking that an underground jakes is a poor place for a smoke and a chat. | |
![]() | Confessions of Proinsias O’Toole 43: Six halves of Haig, fourteen stouts by the neck [...] an’ the keys of the jakes for the lady. | |
![]() | Tommyknockers (1989) 160: I was sitting on the jakes. | |
![]() | Butcher Boy 107: He heard them saying in the jakes Brady was going to batter the master. | |
![]() | Indep. Rev. 4 Mar. 4: On the states of jakes in any town / The BTA (British Toilet Association) will brief MPs. | |
![]() | Guardian G2 10 Jan. 7: A seedy airport jakes. |
2. (also jacques) in fig. use of sense 1, a wretched place or situation.
![]() | Wits Paraphras’d 118: But in the Woods pursue thy freaks / And meddle not with such a Jacques. | |
![]() | View of London & Westminster (2nd part) 48: [T]he Gates of Sodom. I mean the Hundred of Drury, being the Jakes of the Town. | |
![]() | Progress of a Rake 49: My brother rakes / Have left me too in dismal Jakes. |
3. attrib. use of sense 1.
![]() | Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1969) 57: Sanitized jake seats / Ammonia pucks in every urinal. |
In compounds
a man employed to clean out privies .
![]() | Second Part of Conny-Catching in (1881–3) X 101: I will for reuenge onely appoint the Jakes farmers of London, who shall cage them in their filthy vesselles, and carrye them as dung to manure the barrain places of Tibourne. | |
![]() | Have With You to Saffron-Walden in Works III (1883–4) 196: Like a iakes barreller. | |
![]() | Greenes Ghost Haunting Conicatchers D2: His face, his necke and apparell were all besmeared with the soft Sir-reuerence, so that I warrant you hee stunke worse than a Jakes-farmer. | |
![]() | New and Choise Characters n.p.: A Divellish usurer [...] Hee is a man of no conscience; for (like the Jakesfarmer that swouned with going into Bucklersbury) he falles into a cold sweat. | |
![]() | Love’s Cure II i: Nay we are all Signiors here in Spain, from the Jakes-farmer to the Grandee. | |
![]() | The Booke of bulls 41: A Jakes-farmer passing the streetes of London at his usuall time of night two, or three Citizens passing by him stopped their noses, and cryed faugh. | |
![]() | Gate of Languages Unlocked Ch. 58 624: The common draught-house ([jakes) [...] which the jakes-farmer [gold-finder] makes cleane. | (trans.)|
![]() | Gargantua & Pantagruel [trans.] 197: Darius, a Gold-finder, or Jakes-farmer. | |
![]() | Man in the Moon 5 May 12: Though Gentry will not come to see the Play, / Jacques-farmers will frequent it eve’ry day. | |
![]() | A dictionary of barbarous French n.p.: Gadouärd, a Jakes-farmer, Tomturd; also a Scavenger. | |
![]() | Nomenclatura clericalis 17: Jakes-Farmer Foricarum Conductor. | |
![]() | The conquest of Ireland 32: A Jesuit hitherto so Famous for his Politicks, will be lookt upon no better than a Jakes Farmer. |