Commode

[Dr. Goodword]

• commode •

Pronunciation: kê-mod • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun

Meaning: 1. A toilet, potty, crapper. 2. A chair concealing a chamber pot. 3. A low chest of drawers or chiffonier. 4. A woman's headdress fashionable in the 17th-18th centuries, with a wire frame from which streamers descended over the shoulders.

Notes: Here is a word whose sense has devolved from a decorative piece of living room furniture to a secretive, unadorned porcelain pot where we do our most private, personal business. The adjective commode "convenient, suitable, opportune" has retained the original Latin sense, however far the nominal sense has wandered from its original course.

In Play: One example is enough for the most popular sense of today's word: "Billy, please flush the commode when you finish doing your business!" According to the OED, the adjective use is obsolete, but it still sounds so nice: "Could I call you back later at a more commode time?"

Word History: Today's Good Word comes to us from French commode, an adjective meaning "convenient, suitable", used as a noun, passed down from Latin commodus "proper, fit, convenient". This word was built from com- "(together) with" + modus "measure, manner". Latin inherited modus from the PIE word med-/mod- "(take an appropriate) measure", source also of English mete (out) and meet. The E-variant turned up in Latin mederi "to look after, heal", which underlies the English borrowed words medicine, medical and remedy. Latin also inherited the O-variant for its moderari "to keep within measure", which English borrowed as moderate. (Today's Good Word was a suggestion of Patricia Castellanos of Montevideo, Uruguay, a native speaker of Spanish but an English and French translator who has recommended many fascinating words for this series since 2005.)

[Slava]

Somehow, the idea of wearing one's commode doesn't appeal to me. Is that the original port-a-potty?

This one relates to others, so we could have a nice sentence like, The Suez Canal was insufficiently commodious for the Ever Given, leading to a blockage discommoding international shipping,

[LukeJavan8]

I see the blockage is now open.

[Slava]

I hope that means shipping lane accommodations are now freed up. I wonder what our next world-affecting crisis will be.

[David Myer]

Surely no-one uses commode as an adjective? I have never heard such use. There is a perfectly satisfactory adjectival version of the word in UK and in Australia - commodious. We call back at a more commodious time (if we are being pompous). 'Convenient' is the less pretentious word. Interesting that convenience is another euphemism for a commode. Where on earth did the OED find commode used as an adjective (albeit an obsolete one)? Does it quote some eminent 18th century writer?

[Slava]

My Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia has a quote from the Provoked Husband of Cibber. It also says that commode can mean a procuress or bawd. There is also commodely as another form available back then.

[bbeeton]

With the reference to procuring, might one conclude that "commodity" is somehow related?

[misterdoe]

I remember that when I was a kid it cracked me up to hear my Dad refer to the commode rather than the toilet (or bathroom). I knew better than to laugh but I thought it sounded funny. I guess my New Yorker sensibility was kicking in; commode seemed like a country/Southern term to my young ears.

And yeah, it's interesting how accommodation and even commodious have kept their "comfort" connotations, while we forget that the commode (or the room it was in) was called a comfort station in some quarters.

[Slava]

With the reference to procuring, might one conclude that "commodity" is somehow related?

I was thinking more along the lines of accommodating, as in desires, but that works, too.

[jfink]

My mother had in her bedroom what she called a "commode", inherited from her childhood home. It was a small cupboard with a door which took up most of the front and which swung open to one side. She used it as a bedside table and stored magazines in the interior, but she said it got its name from its original use, holding a chamber pot neatly out of sight but conveniently at hand.