Restroom: 1. British a room in a public building for people to relax or recover in. 2. North American a toilet in a public building. Why a Toilet is addressed as a Restroom in America? I should narrate an interesting titbit here.I read it a few years back in a National English Magazine.Public toilets in Mumbai would have buckets.One had to fill it up with water and take it to the respective toilet to answer his nature's call The interesting point here is that bucket would have a pin hole,intentionally made it to expedite answering the call as otherwise people standing in queue would become restless.So the client would monitor the level of water in the bucket. "Vidya Balan's Ad for saying No to Open Defecation" gathers mommentum across the length and breadth of the country. Here is a link on "A Brief History of Toilets" in Time Magazine. http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1940525,00.html

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Tarun Chawla

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Originally meaning a public toilet, this seems to be of American origin, with the earliest usages found around 1900. It’s an extremely common usage, and also one of the vaguest. Rest of course has a number of meanings, but this is probably in the sense of "repose" or "refreshing oneself." A slight variation...
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Originally meaning a public toilet, this seems to be of American origin, with the earliest usages found around 1900. It’s an extremely common usage, and also one of the vaguest. Rest of course has a number of meanings, but this is probably in the sense of "repose" or "refreshing oneself." A slight variation is retiring room, a lovely upper-class Briticism from the 1930s. read less
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Toilet is a nasty sounding word and people used to be a bit more cautious in saying that word. You do technically rest there because you are sitting down. At one time public restrooms not only had toilets and sinks but a separate room with couches, chairs, tables for women to rest from shopping. The...
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Toilet is a nasty sounding word and people used to be a bit more cautious in saying that word. You do technically rest there because you are sitting down. At one time public restrooms not only had toilets and sinks but a separate room with couches, chairs, tables for women to rest from shopping. The larger retail stores had this amenity but I don't think the men's room did. The Romans considered the 'bath' a place to relax so it may have branched from there too. read less
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Founder, Philanthropist, Speaker & Counselor at iSahayog NGO with 18 years of diversified experience into Training & Development, Technical Support, Customer Service, Talent Acquisition, Headhunting, Business Development, Sales, Operations, Social-Work, NGO.

Nicely researched.
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Toilet is used in different form names such as Toilette, Restroom, Washroom , Lavatory , Heads , Men's Room , Women's Room , The Facility, Water Closet (WC),etc..
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Relieving relaxes one. And you relax when you rest. If you've been to the "TOI..T" before you rest on your bed, you will sleep well. If not, your night could be a nightmare. So the place is actually from where resting originates. So rightly called the restroom.
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Expert training in spoken hindi english ,ielts , gre/gmat training and counseling.

Language is an evolution words evolve from words of different origin for example in Ben johnson's dictionary the word"whitewash" indicated ladies makeover similarly the word "imp" meant progeny. So the above mentioned usage of words is justifiable
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It is always down to culture and origin, Toilet in india is where you pee and mud, while washroom is the place you take a shower
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In american english toilet means a bathroom fixture consisting of a bowl , usually with a detachable , hinged seat and lid, and a device for flushing with water, used for defecation and urination, in British English it is simply means lavatory, but it has also some synonyms some of which are :ablutions,...
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In american english toilet means a bathroom fixture consisting of a bowl , usually with a detachable , hinged seat and lid, and a device for flushing with water, used for defecation and urination, in British English it is simply means lavatory, but it has also some synonyms some of which are :ablutions, dressing , make-up,getting ready,wash - up , attire , grooming , toilette, tidy -up , origin of word toilet it is originated from french middle word "toilette", in 1530 it is used as "cover or bag for clothes ", now it is obsolete it is seldom used in this sense read less
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American english is different. You can say it is a cultural difference or whatever since language is a live evolving thing, and gets modified by the mix of people who start using it. Eg., LIFT is called ELEVATOR, TAXI is called CAB, TOILET canned RESTROOM, etc etc - even spellings are created a bit...
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American english is different. You can say it is a cultural difference or whatever since language is a live evolving thing, and gets modified by the mix of people who start using it. Eg., LIFT is called ELEVATOR, TAXI is called CAB, TOILET canned RESTROOM, etc etc - even spellings are created a bit differently - eg., color for colour of British english................This is due to history and cultural influences of language read less
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