Bog
Wet, peaty land - the soft, marshy ground that covers significant areas of rural Ireland and Scotland. Also (informal) a toilet, with the connotation of basic and rural. The two senses do not confuse each other in context.
Etymology
From Irish 'bogach' (= soft place, marshy ground), itself from 'bog' (= soft). The word entered English in the sixteenth century as the standard English term for the kind of wet peaty land found in Ireland and Scotland. The informal sense (= toilet) is a twentieth-century extension via British slang, possibly from the soft-ground metaphor or from 'bog-house', an older term for a privy.
In a sentence
"They were cutting turf on the bog when the rain came in."
Historical notes
Bog is one of the Hiberno-English words that has settled into standard English so completely that its Irish origin is invisible to most users. The geographical sense is now scientific terminology - peat bog, raised bog, blanket bog - and Ireland's relationship with its bogland is a major piece of national cultural and ecological history. Bog cotton, bog-trotter, bog oak, bog-standard - the compound forms multiply. The toilet sense remains informal and slightly dated but is universally understood.
Sources
- Oxford English Dictionary, entry bog n. · dictionary
- Foclóir Gaeilge-Béarla (Ó Dónaill), entry bogach. · dictionary