bidet

Bidet entered French in the 15th century as a word for a small horse or pony, probably from an Old French root bider meaning to trot. The transfer of the word to a washing basin occurred in the early 18th century, when French furniture makers produced a low, saddle-shaped basin that one straddled to wash — resembling the posture of sitting on a small horse. The earliest known reference to the bathroom bidet appears in a 1726 inventory of the furniture belonging to the Marquise de Prie.

By the mid-18th century, the bidet had become standard in French aristocratic bedrooms. It was considered a private, intimate piece of furniture, kept in the chambre rather than in any shared washing room. Madame de Pompadour owned a painted bidet with floral motifs. The object and its name spread to Italian and Spanish aristocratic households during the 18th century, following French cultural influence across southern Europe.

English speakers encountered the bidet through travel to France and Italy but largely rejected the device. British and American plumbing traditions developed around the bathtub and the fixed shower, leaving the bidet as a Continental curiosity. The word entered English dictionaries by the 1760s but remained associated with foreignness and, in some Anglo-Saxon cultures, with impropriety. This cultural resistance persisted for over two centuries.

The global pandemic of 2020 triggered a sudden reassessment. Toilet paper shortages across the United States and United Kingdom drove a surge in bidet attachment sales, and the word appeared in mainstream English-language media with unprecedented frequency. Japanese washlet technology, which integrates bidet functions into the toilet seat, had already normalized the concept in East Asia. The word bidet, once whispered, became a household conversation topic overnight.