or jakes, subs. (old).—A privy; a JAKES (q.v.): popularised by Sir John Harrington (see quot. 1822). Also a term of abuse. See JAKES and JAKES-FARMER.
1551. STILL, Gammer Gurton’s Needle, iii. 3.
| Thou wert as good kiss my tail; | |
| Thou slut, thou cut, thou rakes, thou JAKES. |
1594. SHAKESPEARE, Love’s Labour’s Lost, v. 2. Your lion, that holds his poll-ax, sitting on a close stool, will be given to AJAX.
1596. HARINGTON, The Metamorphosis of AJAX [Title].
1600. The Hospitall of Incurable Fooles, 6. A patron and protector of AJAX and his commodities.
1605. CAMDEN, Remaines, 117, ‘Surnames.’ Inquire if you understand it not, of Cloacinas Chaplaines, or such as are well read in AJAX.
1609. JONSON, Epicœne, or the Silent Woman, iv. 5. A stool were better, sir, of Sir AJAX, his invention. Ibid. (1616), Famous Voyage, vi. 290. And I could wish for their eterniz’d sakes, My muse had plough’d with his that sung A-JAX.
c. 1609. J. HEALEY, The Discovery of a New World, 159. John Fisticankoes, AJAX his sonne and heyre.
1611. COTGRAVE, Dictionarie, s.v. Retraict: m. An AIAX, priuie, house of Office.
1665. J. COTGRAVE, English Treasury of Wit and Language, p. 16. Which (like the glorious AJAX of Lincoln’s Inne, I saw in London) laps up naught but filth and excrements.
1694. MOTTEUX, Rabelais, V. vi. Who of late years have stirred up the JAKES.
1822. NARES, Glossary, s.v. AJAX. … Sir John Harrington, 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.
