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...
   • It would, in fact, seem as if a tacit agreement existed, that so soon as St Giles' clock struck ten, the windows were simultaneously opened for a general discharge (which, in 1745, must have rather alarmed Prince Charles' followers, when they had possession of the town), and the streets and closes...1858, David Laing, “Proposals for Cleaning and Lighting the City of Edinburgh (with Original Signatures of a Number of the Principal Inhabitants), in the Year 1735: With Explanatory Remarks”, in...

Noun

gardyloo (plural gardyloos)

1. (Scotland, historical) A cry of “gardyloo”.
   • What do the polished inhabitants of Carrubber's close care for all the taunts that can be uttered by the mouths of all the tobacco-chewing, bacon-eating bagmen who chatter no intelligible language of any country, about "gardy loos," and Caledonian cremonas?1828 October, “Bath. A Satire.”, in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, volume XXIV, page 462
   • Notwithstanding the repeated proclamations of successive magistrates against depositing filth on the streets and closes, and against throwing soil and refuse over the windows, – emphasised as these proclamations were by threats of fines, imprisonment, the pillory, whipping, and banishment, – the...1865, James David Marwick, Sketch of the History of the High Constables of Edinburgh: With Notes on the Early Watching, Cleaning, and other Police Arrangements of the City, Edinburgh: Printed for...
2. An act of discarding waste or some other substance from a height. Also attributive and figurative.
   • I believe the auld women wad hae greed, for Lucky Mac-Phail sent down the lass to tell my friend Mrs Crombie that she had made the gardyloo out of the wrang window, out of respect for twa Highlandmen that were speaking Gaelic in the close below the right ane. […]
   • Mrs Glass, who had been in long and anxious expectation, now rushed, full of eager curiosity and open-mouthed interrogation, upon our heroine, who was positively unable to sustain the overwhelming cataract of her questions, which burst forth with the subliminity of a grand gardyloo […]1818, Walter Scott, “The Heart of Midlothian”, Tales of My Landlord: Second Series, Edinburgh: Archibald Constable and Company; James Ballantyne and Co.; republished in The Prose Works of Sir Walter...
3. (figuratively) Caution, warning.
   • Released but a few weeks before Gremlins, this film drew only foreshadowings of concern that spiraled up into hysterical gardyloos when Gremlins made its debut.1985, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, volume 68, page 87
   • And now, to be usherhandled up the aisle, my ear pincered excruciatingly, my dear sweet Granny kvetching along behind, intoning half-Yiddish gardyloos about my certain future as either a demented hunchbacked bell-ringer, or a Cossack love-slave ... how ignominous!1989, Harlan Ellison, “Crying ‘Water!’ in a Crowded Theater”, Harlan Ellison's Watching, Los Angeles, Calif.: Underwood–Miller, ISBN 978-0-88733-067-4; republished by Open Road Media, 2015, ISBN...