thunderbox

See also: thunder-box and thunder box

English

WOTD – 19 November 2022

Pronunciation

A 19th-century European-made “thunderbox” (sense 1) or portable commode.

A thunderbox (sense 2) or outhouse in the Loxton Historical Village, Loxton, South Australia.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈθʌndəbɒks/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈθʌndɚˌbɑks/

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

• Hyphenation: thund‧er‧box

Etymology 1

From thunder +‎ box. Senses 1 and 2 (“portable commode; any lavatory or toilet”) are probably because of the noises that may be made while using it, especially while defecating.

Noun

thunderbox (plural thunderboxes)

1. (slang) A chamber pot enclosed in a box; a portable commode.

   Synonyms: (historical) close-stool; see also Thesaurus:chamber pot

   • 1939 March, W[ystan] H[ugh] Auden, Christopher Isherwood, “Travel-diary. Chapter 7.”, in Journey to a War, London: Faber & Faber […], →OCLC, page 182:

     True, our cash would run out, but Charleton wouldn't let us starve. He'd put us into shorts, and we should wash the dishes and clean the thunder-boxes and take out guests for walks.

   • 1952 October, Evelyn Waugh, chapter XV, in Men at Arms […], Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown and Company, →OCLC, page 196:

     Then, after another pause, he said: "Well, if you must know, it's my Thunder-box." […] He opened it, showing a mechanism of heavy cast-iron brass and patterned earthenware of solid Edwardian workmanship. On the inside of the lid was a plaque bearing the embossed title Connolly's Chemical Closet.

   • 1975, Leslie Thomas, chapter 7, in Stand Up Virgin Soldiers, London: Arrow Books, published 2005, →ISBN, page 105:

     [T]he response would sound from some soldier unseen, perhaps astride a thunderbox in the ablutions.

   • 1978, Eric [Thomas] Stokes, “The Return of the Peasant to South Asian History”, in The Peasant and the Raj: Studies in Agrarian Society and Peasant Rebellion in Colonial India, New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House in association with Cambridge University Press, →OCLC, page 289:

     In the present age the historian must content himself with the role of humble camp follower to the sociologist and economist. But like the sweeper in my regiment who carried the thunder-box of the sahibs through the Arakan campaign there is the hope that in the end it is he and not they who will be awarded the decoration.

   • 1987, Alfred Draper, chapter 2, in Dawns Like Thunder: The Retreat from Burma 1942, London: Leo Cooper, →ISBN, page 22:

     Then there were the million-odd Indians, coolies, gardeners, house servants, ayahs, syces and others who performed the tasks that no one else would tackle; they emptied the "thunder boxes", collected the refuse and were the main source of labour in the docks.

   • 1991 April 20, Carl Mutt, “The dilemma of ‘thunder boxes’”, in The Mirror, Accra, Ghana: Graphic Corp., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 5, columns 1–2:

     I am afraid his history on the advent of pan latrines or what is better known to 'thoroughbred colonials' as "Thunder Boxes" was rather wanting; and I don't blame him. […] [W]ell after the end of the Second World War some boarding schools in Cape Coast were still using "thunder boxes".

   • 1994, Michael Blundell, “Towards Peace – via Ceylon”, in A Love Affair with the Sun: A Memoir of Seventy Years in Kenya, Nairobi, Kenya: Kenway Publications, →ISBN, part II (Ups and Downs of War), page 80:

     At Roorkee, in King George's Own Royal Bengal Sappers and Miners quarters, thunderboxes with a china receptacle were the only form of sanitation. Outside the little room in which the thunderbox was enclosed prowled a "sweeper" with a wickerwork basket. As soon as the thunderbox had been used, the sweeper hurried forward and carried off triumphantly the china receptacle and contents.

   • 2001, Katherine Frank, “Descent from Kashmir”, in Indira: The Life of Indira Nehru Gandhi, London: HarperCollinsPublishers, →ISBN, part 1 (Indira Nehru), page 8:

     The adults in the family used commodes or ‘thunderboxes’ – European-style toilets on which one sat. The children and servants relieved themselves in the traditional Indian way at ground level. […] [W]hen running water was introduced, the thunderboxes became flushable.

   • 2004, Peter Moss, “Far Titanic City and a Near Fatal Thunder Box”, in Bye-bye Blackbird: An Anglo-Indian Memoir, Lincoln, Neb.: iUniverse, →ISBN, page 50:

     [O]ur nocturnal visitors would, with much clattering and banging, collect and dispose of the contents of our commodes, or thunder boxes, doubtless to be used as fertiliser for distant vegetable gardens. We had about half a dozen thunder boxes ranged down one side of the bathroom, […]. The practice was to leave unused thunder boxes with their seats and lids up, to indicate which were available, and then close them after use.

2. (by extension, chiefly Australia, British, slang) Any lavatory or toilet, especially a rudimentary outdoor latrine or toilet, or an outhouse.

   (outhouse): Synonyms: see Thesaurus:bathroom, Thesaurus:toilet

   • 1974 June 13, Donald Gould, “A Groundling’s Notebook: Ice Waterloo”, in Bernard Dixon, editor, New Scientist, volume 62, number 902, London: IPC Magazines, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 708, column 2:

     Meantime the ICE [Institute of Consumer Ergonomics] experts are poring over their photographs, and making measurements, which, presumably, will go into a computer, and out will come the specification for the perfect thunderbox.

   • 1979, The Bulletin, volume 100, Sydney, N.S.W.: Australian Consolidated Press, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 35, column 1:

     In the old days, when there was a corrugated iron thunderbox, the Holts' guests were told to approach it with caution: where other thunderboxes had redback spiders, the local ones tended to have taipans.

   • 1992, Gerald Durrell, “Crystal Country and beyond”, in The Aye-aye and I: A Rescue Mission in Madagascar, London: BCA, →ISBN, page 94:

     It's an invaluable open-sided box with no bottom and a hole in the top. Perch this over a hole in the ground and voila! you have a thunder box. Comfy to sit on and handsome as well.

   • 1998, Raphael Samuel, “The Lost Gardens of Heligan”, in Alison Light, with Sally Alexander and Gareth Stedman Jones, editors, Island Stories: Unravelling Britain: Theatres of Memory, Volume II, paperback edition, London, New York, N.Y.: Verso, published 1999, →ISBN, part II (English Journeys), page 128:

     A more macabre exercise in historical reconstruction follows the fate of those who, on the eve of the Great War, scrawled their names on the plaster of the ‘thunder box’—the toilet next to the dark house.

   • 2004, Jayne Seagrave, “How to Be a Happy Camper”, in Terri Elderton, Karla Decker, editors, Camping With Kids: The Best Family Campgrounds in British Columbia and Alberta, Surrey, B.C.: Heritage House, →ISBN, page 20:

     There are basically three types of toilets in provincial and national parks. The first are the pit toilets—"thunderboxes"—boxes painted white inside, centrally located in various sections of the campground. The second type of toilet looks like a thunderbox but houses an odour-free flushing toilet.

   • 2005 May, Benedict le Vay, “Eccentric Pastimes”, in Eccentric Britain: The Bradt Guide to Britain’s Follies and Foibles, 2nd edition, Chalfont St. Peter, Buckinghamshire: Bradt Travel Guides; Guilford, Conn.: Globe Pequot Press, →ISBN, part 1 (Eccentric Things We Do), page 57:

     He [John Blashford-Snell] boobytrapped the ‘thunderbox’ and the next guardsman who sat down was met by a deafening blast. The guardsman and plastic loo seat were hurled one way, the loo paper another, but there were no injuries.

   • 2007, Shelley Birse, Blue Water High, Sydney, N.S.W.: Pan Macmillan Australia, →ISBN, page 230:

     And finally he pointed to an old thunderbox and shovel. 'Our toilet block.' Everyone except Fly stared at that old thunderbox like it was from Mars.

   • 2013, Frederick Rennie From, “The German Barracks”, in That’s Enough, Freddy From!, Houston, Tex.: Strategic Book Publishing and Rights Co., →ISBN, page 234:

     We did not have any toilet facilities inside the building. However, after searching, we found small groups of thunderboxes over pits down on the slope in front of the building. These lonely thunderboxes had no protection from the weather, not even a hessian screen.

3. (theater) A box of metal balls which is shaken to create a thunder sound effect.

   Synonym: thunder run

   • 1806 September, Argus [pseudonym], “Provincial Drama, &c.”, in The Monthly Mirror: Reflecting Men and Manners. […], volume XXII, London: […] J. Wright, […] [a]nd published by Vernor, Hood, and Sharpe, […], →OCLC, pages 205–206:

     [T]wo articles, both indispensibly necessary to a theatre, are not blundered, viz. a property room, and thunder box!—no they are omitted altogether!!

   • 1833 May, O’Keeffe, “The Late Mr. O’Keeffe”, in Edward Bulwer-Lytton, editor, The New Monthly Magazine and Literary Journal, volume XXXVIII, 2nd part, number CXLIX, London: [F]or Henry Colburn by Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 37:

     [H]e [the English actor West Digges] said, "Take the child to the slips;" and I was led through the carpenter's gallery, the cloudings and thunder boxes, and placed in a good seat, where I saw the play with great delight.

   • 1891 February–December, Robert Louis Stevenson, “Hatiheu”, in In the South Seas […], New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, published 1896, →OCLC, part I (The Marquesas), page 65:

     It was what is called a good passage, and a feather in the Casco’s cap; but among the most miserable forty hours that any one of us had ever passed. We were swung and tossed together all that time like shot in a stage thunder-box.

   • 1892 January, “Ingenious Stage Machinery”, in The Theatre: A Record of the Stage, Drama, Music, Art, Literature, volume VIII, number 1 (number 179 overall), New York, N.Y.: The Theatre Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 32, column 1:

     The pouring and pattering of rain and the beating of hail require four different contrivances. The most novel of these is a wooden box, about twelve feet long and six inches square, inside of which are numerous slanting sheets of tin, punctured with small holes. A number of peas are rushed continuously up and down the box, rolling over the punctured tin and tumbling from one sheet to the other in a manner like that described of the iron balls in the "thunder box."

   • 1991, Paul Britten Austin, transl., edited by Hans Åstrand, Inger Mattsson, and Gunnar Larsson, Gustavian Opera: An Interdisciplinary Reader in Swedish Opera, Dance, and Theatre, 1771–1809 (Kungliga Musikaliska Akademiens Skriftserie [Royal Academy of Music Book Series]; 66), Stockholm: Kungliga Musikaliska Akademien [Royal Swedish Academy of Music], →ISBN, →ISSN, page 101:

     Thundercrashes, on the other hand, are made by a number of barrel strakes, suspended above one another on a rope to one side of the stage. At a given signal they are allowed to drop to the floor with a crash, followed by loud peal of thunder from the thunderbox.

Alternative forms

• thunder-box, thunder box

Coordinate terms

• thunder pot (Britain, informal)

Translations

chamber pot enclosed in a box

• Finnish: pottalaatikko

any lavatory or toilet — see lavatory,‎ toilet

rudimentary outdoor latrine or toilet

• Finnish: puusee (fi)

outhouse — see outhouse

box of metal balls which is shaken to create a thunder sound effect

• Finnish: laatikko metallikuulia, rasia metallikuulia

Etymology 2

Probably a calque of German Donnerbüchse (“(archaic) blunderbuss; cannon”) (from Donner (“thunder”) + Büchse (“box; can; rifle”)), or its etymon Dutch donderbus (“blunderbuss”) (from donder (“thunder”) + bus (“box; container; (chiefly historical) type of early modern firearm”)).

Noun

thunderbox (plural thunderboxes)

1. (military, obsolete) A blunderbuss; also, a cannon.
   • 1800, Gerhard Ulrich Anthony Vieth, “Gunpowder”, in [anonymous], transl., The Pleasing Preceptor; or Familiar Instructions in Natural History and Physics, […], volume I, London: […] [F]or G. G. and J. Robinson, […] by George Woodfall, […], →OCLC, page 58:

     In the year 1346, at the battle of Crecy, the engliſh uſed a ſort of cannons, which were then called thunder-boxes.

   • 1848, H. J. Whitling, “The Old Man and His Guests”, in Bentley’s Miscellany, volume XXIII, London: Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 203:

     […] I saw Arnoldi at Dettelbach, standing unhurt amongst the lances and swords, which flashed and glittered around him like lightning; the thunder-boxes peppering away all the while as if it snowed lead; and when the pastime (for it was nothing else to him) was over, there he stood leaning on his halbert, coolly shaking out the bullets, which rattled like peas from his breeches and doublet.

Alternative forms

• thunder-box

Further reading

• portable toilet on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• “thunder-box, n.” under “thunder, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, June 2022.
• “thunderbox, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.