gingerbread office

Noun

gingerbread office (plural gingerbread offices)

1. An office in the gingerbread Victorian style.
   • Morley: A year and a half ago I stumbled into your gingerbread office, a lost, frightened soul in terrified flight across the great yawning terror of doubt—a human being, in short!—and you chanted some hagridden formulas and danged some fylfots...1968, The Discovery of Drama, page 378
   • The conversion of an old bungalow into a "gingerbread office" has brought to life a 13-year dream of mine.1975, Dental Survey, volume 51, page 92

   Synonyms:

   outhouse

2. (euphemistic, obsolete, slang) An outhouse: an outbuilding used as a lavatory.
   • There's no great need of Souldiers;
     Their Camp's No larger than a Ginger-bread Office.a. 1643, William Cartwright, Lady-Errant, Act V, Scene i
   • "Gingerbread office" was an eighteenth-century slang term for public toilets, which were, Norton argues, meeting places for homosexuals to engage in sexual encounters. "Gingerbread-kake" and "ginger-bred queen" suggest what may happen in the "office" and name those involved.2001, Chris Mounsey, Christopher Smart: Clown of God, page 192