What WC signs on toilet doors actually stand for

There are many acronyms of the modern world that we often take at face value. After all, who the hell knows what NASA stands for? (It’s National Aeronautics and Space Administration, obviously.)

And what about WC? Well, find out for yourself here:

Yup, while most of us are au fait with text speak like LOL, WTF and IRL, more traditional abbreviations of the real world are sometimes harder to decipher.

Take WC, for example, which often appears on toilet doors.

But the room itself is usually referred to as a ‘bathroom’ or ‘restroom’, so what does WC stand for?

Ken Felepchuk/Alamy Stock Photo

It turns out those two letters stand for ‘water closet’, and that there’s also a perfectly good reason behind the name.

It all stems from a time when indoor plumbing became a thing, after centuries of popping outside to spend a penny.

As bathtubs were already an indoor fixture in homes, they had a dedicated room – the bathroom, of course.

But people needed somewhere for their brand new, shiny indoor toilet to go.

After someone asked TikToker Nathan (@itsnathannyc) about the term, he explained in a video: “Oh, you sweet young thing! WC stands for ‘water closet’.

“Before indoor plumbing, you actually had a room for your bathtub – the bathroom.

“But the spout was outside. You had to carry water in with a bucket, heat it up, pour it in the tub.

TikTok/@itsnathannyc

“Indoor plumbing comes along – they already have this room with the bath, the bathroom... Where do you put the toilet?

“You just put it in a closet. It was an easy place to put a toilet. So: the water closet.

“It was the one room in the house where there was running water.”

Many other TikTokers admitted they’d never realised what WC stood for, or why, with one person commenting: "I’m glad someone asked because I’ve been wondering this for years but never googled it."

Someone else said: "I never actually thought about this."

Another added: "I was 23 y/o when I learned that WC is called water closet."

A fourth else piped up to say: "Can’t believe I’ve been living with a WC sign and had no idea why it was called WC."

Well, IYKYK.