old dunny
- noun
- Archaic
:
letrina
- Growing up in the country, we had an old dunny at the back of the yard.
Examples
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Visitors were amused by the old dunny behind the cottage.
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My grandparents used to have an old dunny behind their house.
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The old dunny was finally replaced with a modern toilet.
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The old dunny in the backyard needs repairs.
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Growing up in the country, we had an old dunny at the back of the yard.
-
The old dunny was finally replaced with a modern toilet.
-
My grandparents used to have an old dunny behind their house.
Synonyms
33
5.8
A small building near a house that has a simple outdoor toilet
29
9.9
A toilet in informal speech
12
9.9
A small outdoor toilet in a separate building
2
9.9
An outdoor building with a bench and holes that people used to go to the toilet
1
9.9
An outdoor toilet often in a small building behind a house
An old toilet often found in old houses or museums
Antonyms
Surface Forms
Morphology
This is a straightforward adjective + noun combination: 'old' (not new) modifies 'dunny' (an outdoor toilet), so the meaning 'an old outdoor toilet' is directly and compositionally derivable from the parts. Although 'dunny' is regional slang, its lexical meaning is literal, so a B1 learner who knows both words will readily understand the phrase.
Etymology
Old dunny comes from country life, where a dunny was a small wooden toilet shed at the back of the yard and old showed it was worn or from long ago. Imagine that little outdoor shed used as a toilet; that's why the phrase means 'an old-fashioned outdoor toilet'.