Meaning & use
w/c
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Meanings
abbreviationBritish
Used before a date to mean the week that starts on that date.
Grammar: Comes directly before a date with no article: w/c 3 June, not 'the w/c 3 June'.
Patterns
- w/c + date
- the week w/c + date
The training sessions are booked for w/c 3 June, so please keep that whole week free.
Her holiday request covers w/c 21 July, which is the busiest week of our season.
The report is due w/c 12 September, and the editor will call you that Monday.
abbreviationBritishold-fashioned
A written short form of 'water closet', meaning a toilet or the room containing one.
Grammar: Usually written on plans, signs or old documents; in speech people say 'toilet' or 'loo'.
Patterns
- w/c on a sign
- w/c facilities
The plans show a small w/c just off the entrance hall.
Older buildings often still have 'W.C.' painted on the door of the toilet.
Guests can use the w/c on the ground floor.
Common combinations
- w/c + a date
- Payments are processed in the week w/c 5 May.
- the week w/c
- The week w/c 14 October is a public holiday here.
- w/c facilities
- The new office has w/c facilities on every floor.
- w/c 3 June
- Our next meeting is w/c 3 June, probably on the Tuesday.
- w/c on the door
- There is still a w/c sign on the door of the old washroom.
Synonyms and how they differ
- week of
- The usual American wording; use it in US contexts instead of w/c.
- w.b.
- A rarer British abbreviation for 'week beginning', used the same way before a date.
- toilet
- The everyday spoken word for the room that w/c stands for in its second sense.
Commonly confused: w/c or WC? w/c or wk?
w/c vs WC
Written without the slash and usually in capitals, WC is the standard short form of 'water closet'; w/c with a slash is far more often 'week commencing'.
w/c vs wk
wk is a short form of 'week' on its own, as in 'wk 3', but it does not mean the week starts on a particular date.
Practice
An email says: 'The audit takes place w/c 8 April.' What does this tell you?
Choose one answer.
w/c before a date marks the week beginning on that date, so the exact day inside that week is still open. Option 0 wrongly fixes it to one day, and options 2 and 3 treat the number as a length of time rather than a date.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “w/c”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.