Toilet
TOILET, the process or operation of dressing, also dress and its appurtenances, also applied, especially in the French form " toilette," to a particular costume worn by a lady. The word is adapted from French toilette, a diminutive of toile, cloth, Latin tela, web, woven cloth, from root of texere, to weave; this word survives in the English " toils," net, snare. 1 The earliest use of " toilet " and toilette is for a cloth, usually of linen or other fine material spread over a table when used to hold the lookingglass and all the other articles used in dressing, or for a small sheet or cloth thrown over the shoulders of a person while being shaved or having his or her hair dressed. It was thus applied especially to the various articles collectively which form the apparatus of a toilet-table or dressing-table. Dressing-tables or toilettes were articles of domestic furniture on which the 18th century cabinet makers and ebenistes of France lavished their decorative art. The escritoire and toilette combined which belonged to Marie Antoinette is in the Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington (see FURNITURE, Plate IV., fig. 4).
1 " Toil, " labour, fatigue, weariness, must of course be distinguished. The M. Eng. toilen appears to mean to pull, struggle, and is probably related to Scots tottyie, broil, and to Fr. touiller, to entangle shuffle together, smear. It is, however, usually referred to " till,' to cultivate, O. Eng. tiolian, from til, profitable, cf . Ger. Ziel, goal TOKAJ (or TOKAY), a town of Hungary, in the county of emplen, 148 m. E.N.E. of Budapest by rail. Pop. (1900), 5104. it is situated at the confluence of the Bodrog with the Theiss, and gives its name to the famous Tokay wine. Toltaj lies at the 'oot of the Hegyalja Mountains, which stretch to the north and north-west of the town, between the rivers Hernad and Bodrog, 'or a distance of about 60 m. as far north as Eperjes. The northern part of the range is also called S6var Mountains. These mountains, which have in the northern part an altitude of 2700 ft., slope down towards the south-east near Tokaj in a hilly plateau of about 1500 ft. altitude, where the vineyard region is situated. This vineyard region covers an area of about 135 sq. m., and belongs to 21 adjoining communities. The soil is of volcanic origin (trachyte) . The principal places where the wine is produced are Tarczal, Talya, Mad, Liszka, Tokaj, Tolcsva, Sarospatak, Keresztur, and Zsadany. The yearly production averages 5,000,000 gallons. It is believed that the vine was introduced into this region by colonists from Italy and Morea in 1241.
Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)
