What is the origin of "six" as a word to refer to the toilet?

Question

A common euphemism for the toilet in the spoken Welsh of north Wales is "lle chwech", literally "six place" ("chwech" being "six" in Welsh). Note this refers mainly to the room rather than the porcelain throne itself.

Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru (the Welsh equivalent of the Oxford English Dictionary) states here that this is a borrowing from the English slang six "a privy".

There is a reference to six with this meaning in The Routledge Dictionary of Historical Slang here. It states:

six A privy: Oxford University: ca 1870-1915. ?origin

I'm not sure to which Oxford publication the date range above refers. I've looked in the New English Dictionary ... under six and found nothing relevant.

In conversation, someone has suggested a link to the French "sis" from "soeir" meaning "to sit", which seems plausible semantically but I'm no expert on French.

Another possibility is that it may have cost sixpence to visit a toilet at some point. However, this seems expensive considering "spend a penny" is apparently from the 1850s and that it was only 2p to visit the lavatory in 1977 according to A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English.

Any thoughts on the origin of six in this context?

Answer 1

The best reference I could find is from British Library Sounds web page:

lle chwech^≠9 (source of well-known Welsh joke that toilets are more expensive in Wales than in England as “chwech” also used for ‘six’^≠, i.e. five pence more than “spend a penny”, possibly thought to derive from “rhech” Welsh for ‘to fart’^≠)

_{^≠see Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru (online)}

_{⁹See also Robert Penhallurick’s The Anglo-Welsh Dialects of North Wales (1991, p.226) Cl1 Llanfair Talhaiarn.}

_{http://sounds.bl.uk/related-content/TEXTS/021T-C1190X0041XX-0501A0.pdf}

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Another possible explanation I've found is that lle chwech (which translates to "six place") refers to the workers toilets which commonly have six seats. I've found this explanation in three different sites (two of them are answers in a forum and one of them is a comment in a blog page). The people who provided the explanation appear to be of Welsh origin.

It's kind of our version of 'outhouse' - comes from workers' toilets, where you'd commonly have six seats in a row

_{https://forum.saysomethingin.com/t/tresaith-bootcamp-sept-2014/674/15}

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Welsh: Y posibilrwydd arall (fase'n esbonio pam fod y term yn bodoli mewn rhai ardaloedd gogleddol yn unig) yw fod e'n dod o ardaloedd y chwareli a mwynau copr, lle roedd cwt 'ty bach' gyda lle i chwech person yn unig.

English translation: The other possibility (explaining why the term exists in some northern areas only) is that it comes from the areas of quarries and copper mines, where there was a 'small house'(toilet) cabin for just six people.

_{https://maes-e.com/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=11463}

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The Welsh euphemism for ‘toilet’ is a literal translation of “little house” (tŷ bach) the standard word you’d see for example on public signs would be “toiledau” (toilets). There are other Welsh euphemisms for ‘toilet’ but the common North Wales dialect one is “lle chwech” which translates as “six place” usually explained as referring to workplace toilets where you’d commonly have six seats in a row?

_{https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2015/08/27/the-place-for-toilet-euphemisms/}

Furthermore, I've found a supporting evidence for the second theory in an archaeology book written in Welsh. It provides a reference to a six-seater privy in a quarry in north Wales. Here is the excerpt and the image from the book Llechi Cymru: Archaeoleg a Hanes (by David Gwyn):

Anaml iawn y gwelwyd toiledau tan yr ugeinfed ganrif. Mewn rhai mannau, mae seddi dwbl o slabiau wedi goroesi dan ddaear, fel yn chwarel Cambrian yng Nglyn Ceiriog a oedd, fwy na thebyg, ar un adeg yn gysylltiedig â chlosedau pridd, er ym Maenofferen, defnyddiai'r dynion blanc dros sianel ddŵr a redai'n gyflym tan 1996. Yn chwarel Oakeley rhoddai rhes o gabanau heb ddrysau arnynt olygfa arbennig o dref Blaenau Ffestiniog. Mae magic flute chwe sedd wedi goroesi ym Mhen yr Orsedd. Cai hwnnw ei fflysio gan fwced y byddai dŵr yn cronni ynddi nes bod digon o bwysau ynddi i'w gwagio (Ffigur 163). Roedd closedau dŵr canolog ar gael yn y Penrhyn erbyn y 1950au.

English translation: Privies were few and far between until the twentieth century. In some places double-seater slab seats survive underground, such as at the Cambrian quarry in Glyn Ceiriog, which presumably at one time were associated with earth closets, though at Maenofferen the men used a plank over a fast-running water channel until 1996. At Oakeley quarry a row of door-less cabins commanded a magnificent view of the town of Blaenau Ffestiniog. A 'magic flute' six-seater survives at Pen yr Orsedd, flushed by a tipping bucket in which water accumulates until the weight empties it (Figure 163). Penrhyn had acquired centralised water closets by the 1950.

Ffigur 163. Lle chwech ym Mhen yr Orsedd, Nantlle, gyda dull fflysio awtomatig yn yblaendir.

English translation: Figure 163. Pen yr Orsedd privy, Nantlle, with automatic flushing mechanism in the foreground.

Answer 2

Just wondering whether the Oxford undergraduates' "six" was inspired by poor/deliberately bad Latin pronunciation.

In Italian, the word cesso (/'tʃɛs:o/ pronounced ‘chesso’) is a very informal expression for gabinetto (cabinet--->toilet). The word is derived from the Latin past participle of the verb cedere, cessus, in modern Italian “cessare”, which means to cease, withdraw from, stop doing something. Could the hard c in Latin have been mistaken for a soft one by English schoolboys? Moreover, the x in many Latin words was later represented by the letters ss.

An exchange of the sounds ss, or s and x, took place in axis for ‘assis’, laxus for ‘lassus’; […] In the later language of the vulgar, the guttural sound in x disappeared, and s or ss was often written for it; as vis for “vix*. vixit for ‘visit’. unsit for ‘unxit’, conflississet for ‘conflixisset’, in late Inscrr. (v. Corss. Ausspr. I. p. 297 sq.); hence regularly in Italian, and frequently in the other Romance tongues, the Lat. x is represented by s or ss.

A Latin Dictionary by Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short.

NB.
This is just an idea, and I am not an expert in Latin, so please feel free to correct my conjectures in the comments below. Yeah... and downvote the answer if it's really off the mark.

Answer 3

A complete "stab in the dark", but could it meant he sixth room of a home? First two could be the formal front rooms (lounge/sitting room), then adult and child bedrooms, a kitchen makes five and six might be an outhouse or bathing room with a toilet? Water closet is another term used.