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Dictionary definition of “seat of ease”

seat of ease

n. aboard a ship, a board overhanging water for defecation or urination; a toilet. Subjects: English

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Citations: 1869 Richard W. Meade A Treatise on Naval Architecture and Ship-Building (Philadelphia, Pa.) 2 ed., p. 467: False Rail.—A rail fayed down upon the upper side of the main or upper rail of the head. It is to strengthen the head-rail, and forms the seat of ease at the after end next the bow. 1992 Patrick O'Brian The Truelove (May 1) p. 16 @ (July 1, 1993): Taking medicine meant swallowing improbable quantities of calomel, suphur, Turkey rhubarb (often added to their own surgeon’s prescription) and spending the whole of the next day on the seat of ease, gasping, straining, sweating, ruining their lower alimentary tract. 2005 Patricia Smith Daily News (Jacksonville, N.C.) (May 23) “QAR dive produces interesting artifacts”: It’s a pissdale; it’s essentially a urinal.…Basically it’s just a tapered lead tube that leads from the “seat of ease” as they called it out into the water.

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