subs. (old colloquial).—A privy; a house of office. [Century: The occurrence of dial. johnny, a JAKES—‘also called Mrs. Jones by country people’ (HALLIWELL), with dial. Tom, a close-stool, suggests that JAKES was originally Jake’s or Jack’s, a humorous euphemism.] Also (Scots’) JACK. See AJAX.
c. 1550. T. INGLELEND, The Disobedient Child [DODSLEY, Old Plays, 1874, ii. 276]. To … do as poor knaves, which JAXES do scour.
1596. NASHE, Have with You to Saffron-Walden, in Works [GROSART], iii. 196. I worse scorne it than to have so foul a JAKES as his mouth for my groning stool.
1598. FLORIO, A Worlde of Wordes, s.v. Condotto. … Also a conduite, a priuie, a IAKES, a sinke.
1605. CAMDEN, Remaines, p. 307, ‘Rythmes.’ Salomon, a Iew, fell into a JAKES at Tewsbury upon a Saturday.
1605. SHAKESPEARE, King Lear, ii. 2. I will tread this unbolted villain into mortar, and daub the walls of a JAKES with him.
1641. MILTON, An Apology for Smectymnuus [Works (1851), 275]. Christ himselfe speaking of unsavory traditions, scruples not to name the Dunghill and the JAKES.
1678. COTTON, Virgil Travestie, in Works (1725), Bk. iv. p. 91.
| Thou here thy self most busie makes | |
| In building for the Queen a JAKES. |
c. 1696. B. E., A New Dictionary of the Canting Crew, s.v. JAKES.
1728. POPE, The Dunciad, i. 144. And ’scape the martyrdom of JAKES and fire.
1737. The Mobiad [quoted in Notes and Queries, 2 S. xi. 125].
| Now Chiefs of haughty bosom supple stoop | |
| Ev’n to the JAKES to angle for a Dupe. |
1751–4. JORTIN, Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, an. 379. Their tenets were an horrible confusion of all sorts of impieties, which flowed into this sect as into a JAKES.
1785. GROSE, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v.
