Sense file
How the sense moved
The archive follows the dated record first, then reads the social or rhetorical pressure that hardened, softened, narrowed, or reversed the word.
Older meaning
A cloth, clothes bag, dressing table cover, or act of dressing.
Modern meaning
A lavatory or porcelain plumbing fixture.
Research lens
A euphemism-and-room-association drift that turns textile grooming language into plumbing vocabulary.
Meaning trail
Root
small cloth
The textile meaning came first.
Bridge
dressing and grooming
Objects on the cloth transferred to the ritual.
Now
lavatory fixture
Euphemism and room association narrowed the modern sense.