Meaning & use
portaloos
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“portaloos” is a form of “portaloo”.
Meaning
nouncountableBritishinformal
Portable toilet cabins set up at outdoor events or building sites where no permanent toilets exist.
Grammar: Plural form of portaloo: the portaloos were lined up behind the stage.
Patterns
- hire portaloos
- queue for the portaloos
The festival had rows of portaloos behind the main stage.
We queued for the portaloos for twenty minutes.
The builders arranged for portaloos to be delivered to the site.
Word forms
| singular | portaloo |
|---|
Common combinations
- hire portaloos
- The council had to hire portaloos for the fair.
- queue for the portaloos
- Everyone queued for the portaloos at the interval.
- clean the portaloos
- A team cleans the portaloos twice a day.
- a row of portaloos
- A row of portaloos stood by the car park.
Synonyms and how they differ
- porta-potty
- Porta-potty is the usual American term, while portaloos is the British one.
- portable toilets
- Portable toilets is the neutral, descriptive phrase and is not tied to one brand.
- outhouses
- Outhouses are permanent little buildings away from a house, unlike movable portaloos.
Word family
Commonly confused: portaloos or porthole?
portaloos vs porthole
A porthole is a round window on a ship, not a toilet.
Practice
At the music festival, the queue for the ______ stretched around the field.
Choose one answer.
Portaloos are portable toilet cabins used at outdoor events. Pavilions are tents or buildings, podiums are platforms and pontoons are floating structures.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “portaloos”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.