different between privy vs solitary

English

Alternative forms

• privie (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English pryvy, prive, from Old French privé (“private”), from Latin pr?v?tus (“deprived”), perfect passive participle of pr?v? (“I bereave, deprive; I free, release”). Doublet of private.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?p??v.i/

Adjective

privy (comparative more privy, superlative most privy)

1. (now chiefly historical) Private, exclusive; not public; one's own. [from early 13th c.]

2. (now rare, archaic) Secret, hidden, concealed.
3. With knowledge of; party to; let in on. [from late 14th c.]

Derived terms

• privy council

Translations

Noun

privy (plural privies)

1. An outdoor facility for urination and defecation, whether open (latrine) or enclosed (outhouse).
2. A lavatory: a room with a toilet.
3. A toilet: a fixture used for urination and defecation.
   • 1864 January 26, J.G. Lindsay, letter to P.P.L. O'Connel, §8:

     Arconum—I found two chairs wanting in the gentlemen's room, and the bath room attached applied to other purposes... the privies and urinaries clean...

4. (law) A partaker; one having an interest in an action, contract, etc. to which he is not himself a party.

Synonyms

• (latrine, outhouse, or lavatory): See Thesaurus:bathroom
• (fixture): See Thesaurus:toilet

Derived terms

• privy house

Translations

English

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /?s?l?t??i/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?s?l?t?i/

Etymology 1

From Middle English [Term?], borrowed from Latin s?lit?rius.

Noun

solitary (countable and uncountable, plural solitaries)

1. (countable) One who lives alone, or in solitude; an anchoret, hermit or recluse.
   • 1975, Saul Bellow, Humboldt's Gift [Avon ed., 1976, p. 24]:

     He brooded and intrigued fantastically. He was becoming one of the big-time solitaries. And he wasn't meant to be a solitary. He was meant to be in active life, a social creature.

2. (uncountable) Solitary confinement.

   The prisoners who started the riot were moved to solitary.

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:recluse

Translations

Adjective

solitary (not comparable)

1. Living or being by oneself; alone; having no companion present
2. Performed, passed, or endured alone

3. Not much visited or frequented; remote from society

4. Not inhabited or occupied; without signs of inhabitants or occupation; desolate; deserted
   • 1769, Bible (King James Version), Lamentations 1.1

     How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people!
5. gloomy; dismal, because of not being inhabited.
6. Single; individual; sole.
7. (botany) Not associated with others of the same kind.

Derived terms

Translations

Etymology 2

Noun

solitary

1. (archaic) The Rodrigues solitaire (Pezophaps solitaria), an extinct flightless bird.

Anagrams

• royalist