Word.ws English Dictionary

gardy loo

gardy loo is the alternative form of gardyloo.

Meaning of gardyloo

Interjection

  1. (Scotland, historical) A cry used to warn passersby that a vessel of wastewater is about to be emptied into the street.
    • [A]ll the chairs in the family are emptied into this here barrel once a-day; and at ten o'clock at night the whole cargo is flung out of a back windore that looks into some street or lane, and the maid calls Gardy loo to the passengers, which signifies, Lord have mercy upon you! and this is done...1771, Tobias Smollet, The Expedition of Humphry Clinker, Dublin: Printed for A. Leathley, J. Exshaw, H. Saunders, W. Sleater, D. Chamberlain [and ten others], OCLC 277265635, republished in The...

See all 4 meanings of gardyloo

Questions about gardy loo

What is gardy loo the alternative form of?
Gardy loo is the alternative form of gardyloo.

Words near gardy loo in the dictionary

  1. Gardos channel
  2. Gardos channels
  3. gards
  4. Garduno
  5. Gardunos
  6. gardy loo
  7. gardyloo
  8. gardyloos
  9. gare
  10. Gare Loch
  11. Gared

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: gardy loo (page history and authors); gardyloo (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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