"gingerbread office" meaning in English

See gingerbread office in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: gingerbread offices [plural]
Etymology: From gingerbread (“in its figurative use as ersatz or unpleasant”) + office (“place to fulfill one's obligations; place of business”) Etymology templates: {{m|en|gingerbread||in its figurative use as ersatz or unpleasant}} gingerbread (“in its figurative use as ersatz or unpleasant”), {{m|en|office||place to fulfill one's obligations; place of business}} office (“place to fulfill one's obligations; place of business”) Head templates: {{en-noun}} gingerbread office (plural gingerbread offices)
  1. (obsolete, euphemistic slang) An outhouse: an outbuilding used as a lavatory. Tags: euphemistic, obsolete, slang Categories (topical): Toilet (room)
    Sense id: en-gingerbread_office-en-noun-D9AmRojQ Disambiguation of Toilet (room): 58 42 Categories (other): English euphemisms
  2. (architecture) An office in the gingerbread Victorian style. Categories (topical): Architecture, Buildings, Rooms Synonyms: bathroom Related terms: Gingerbread, a British charity with various offices
    Sense id: en-gingerbread_office-en-noun-7Kv0AkI7 Disambiguation of Buildings: 38 62 Disambiguation of Rooms: 43 57 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English entries with language name categories using raw markup, English entries with topic categories using raw markup, English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 44 56 Disambiguation of English entries with language name categories using raw markup: 19 81 Disambiguation of English entries with topic categories using raw markup: 19 81 Disambiguation of English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys: 17 83 Topics: architecture

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for gingerbread office meaning in English (5.4kB)

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        "(obsolete, euphemistic slang) An outhouse: an outbuilding used as a lavatory."
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          "ref": "1968, The Discovery of Drama, page 378",
          "text": "Morley: A year and a half ago I stumbled into your gingerbread office, a lost, frightened soul in terrified flight across the great yawning terror of doubt—a human being, in short!—and you chanted some hagridden formulas and danged some fylfots...",
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          "text": "\"Gingerbread office\" was an eighteenth-century slang term for public toilets, which were, Norton argues, meeting places for homosexuals to engage in sexual encounters. \"Gingerbread-kake\" and \"ginger-bred queen\" suggest what may happen in the \"office\" and name those involved.",
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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-06 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

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