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I'm writing a short story that happens in a prison during the French Revolution and I imagine the prison cell to have a toilet that is basically just a hole in the floor.

The thing is I don't know what you call it in English. It doesn't help that I also don't know an exact word for it in my native language. I need a word to refer to the hole itself.

An example sentence for my problem could be:

They tied the other end of the rope on one of the bars of the BLANK.

BLANK being the hole where the prisoner do their necessities.

While trying to translate it I found the words ditch and fosse. But I'm afraid that I'd be misunderstood if I used those words, so I'd be thankful if someone could confirm these for me, or inform me of a new word.

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    Perhaps a duplicate: ... a word for an outhouse inside ... Latrine / Garderobe (toilet chute)
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Apr 7, 2023 at 14:52
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    “...on one of the bars of the BLANK” — How is it that a hole in the ground has bars? Can you paint a more complete picture? Also, are you looking for a word in use during the French Revolution? Lastly, you say are imagining the prison cell toilets; do you have evidence of what these might actually have looked like?
    – Tinfoil Hat
    Commented Apr 8, 2023 at 2:16
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    As a side comment, the French Revolution was three hundred years past the end of the Middle Ages.
    – Martin Argerami
    Commented Apr 8, 2023 at 3:59
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    Unless it is important to your story to have someone sneak into or out of the prison through the sewers, it seems more likely that a simple cell would have a wooden bucket / bedpan / chamber pot in it, which was removed and emptied into the street, rather than a connection to a pre-engineered system for removing waste. Small parts of Paris has sewers at the time of the Revolution, but they were not extensive.
    – Kirt
    Commented Apr 8, 2023 at 6:47
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    @TinfoilHat Presumably the hole has some sort of barred metal grate over it, precisely to prevent people (or perhaps rats) from entering and exiting. But I do second your recommendation that OP do research into what the facilities would actually have been.
    – Kirt
    Commented Apr 8, 2023 at 6:50

4 Answers 4

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You can use latrine:

A latrine is a toilet or an even simpler facility that is used as a toilet within a sanitation system. For example, it can be a communal trench in the earth in a camp to be used as emergency sanitation, a hole in the ground (pit latrine), or more advanced designs, including pour-flush systems. (Wikipedia)

The term is used in prisons as you ca see from this article: Sanitary facilities and personal hygiene

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    AKA pit toilets, especially if they're not architecturally enhanced.
    – John Lawler
    Commented Apr 7, 2023 at 15:33
  • latrine were outside of a main structure. They were not inside a prison at the time of the French Revolution.
    – Lambie
    Commented Apr 18, 2023 at 16:45
  • @JohnLawler — Post that as an answer. It is quite precise, whereas I have the feeling that latrine can include constructions where the excrement is washed away by a stream, as in monasteries.
    – David
    Commented Apr 18, 2023 at 18:10
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OED

Garderobe (n.)

2. A privy; a latrine.

Now the most common sense, chiefly with reference to toilet facilities used in or preserved from the Middle Ages. No clear evidence of this usage has been found in English (as opposed to Anglo-Norman and Latin) from the period, although cf. wardrobe n. 1a.

1680 tr. J.-B. Tavernier Coll. Several Relations & Treat. ii. 49 There is another place cover'd for your Kitchin; and another little Garderobe [Fr. garderobe] for the private deeds of Nature.

You will note that garderobe was used in 1680 for this purpose and can therefore be assumed to be OK for the time of the French Revolution.

[As an aside, for background it is worth reading the Introduction of "Legend of the Bastille" by Frantz Funck-Bretano, which, I'm sure, will surprise you.]

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    This is a great word (which I was previously unaware of, so thanks!), but it's not clear to me whether it primarily refers to the room or whether it can refer to the actual hole itself.
    – Michael Seifert
    Commented Apr 7, 2023 at 16:55
  • @MichaelSeifert You can sit on a toilet or sit in a toilet or drop something down a toilet, so I suppose it doesn't matter.
    – Greybeard
    Commented Apr 7, 2023 at 18:40
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    This looks like yet another euphemism of the lavatory/toilet/privy/bathroom/restroom type: clearly it is a doublet of wardrobe as its principal meaning.
    – Henry
    Commented Apr 8, 2023 at 16:26
  • @Henry: For an even closer modern parallel, I’ve seen a few venues in the US (concert halls, theatres) where cloakrooms was the chosen euphemism for the WCs.
    – PLL
    Commented Apr 9, 2023 at 11:46
  • This is the most correct answer. The facilities described are frequently described as such in English language illustrations of medieval architecture.
    – ohwilleke
    Commented Apr 10, 2023 at 0:36
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In Australia and New Zealand we call it a long drop

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Frankly, in a French prison, but written in English, a hole in the ground with an "agony bar" is a "shit pit". You might condense this to "the pit" after an initial introduction.

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