"Bathroom" or "Restroom"

Question

I have a specific question: Are Americans more inclined to use "bathroom" or "restroom" about a bathroom/restroom with several sinks and stalls in a company building?

Answer 1

Both usages are acceptable to describe the room you describe. Restroom is probably used more often due to the environment where those larger, several stalls, several sinks, bathrooms exist.

Restroom is the more formal word. Your first day of work you would be more likely to ask your boss where the restroom is.

Bathroom is the more casual word. You might ask the waiter at your favorite restaurant where the restroom is but you might ask your friend sitting next to you at the restaurant where the bathroom is.

As a generally safe rule, ask strangers where the restroom is and ask friends where the bathroom is.

Answer 2

In the US, both the terms restroom and bathroom will be used for facilities in public spaces, commercial buildings, and office spaces. So will the terms toilet and washroom. The frequency that these terms will be used in conversation are about equal. There will be slight degrees of difference in the frequency of their use depending on geographic region, formality, occupation, upbringing, and other factors. On printed signage, the use of the term Restroom is almost completely universal. So, “restroom” tends to be more frequently used than any of they other words when the facilities are not in a home or domicile.

Answer 3

According to Google Book Ngram Viewer, use the bathroom is twice as common as in print in the US than use the restroom. Use the toilet falls below use the restroom, and use the washroom is in a distant last place:

Incidentally, if I switch the corpus to UK English, bathroom remains the most common, washroom remains the least common, and toilet and restroom exchange places—although toilet creeps a bit closer to bathroom:

I have no way of objectively confirming verbal use, or which is considered more polite. (And Google doesn't track signage, only books.) Anything I say with that respect would be entirely speculative and opinion-based. Even if there is a general consensus that one is more polite than the other, I can't point to any kind of study that actually shows this to be the case.

Answer 4

I agree with the consensus of the other comments: restroom is more "formal" and used for signage, and bathroom is more casual/likely to be used at someone's house when talking about the noun. When talking about the act of using the facilities, both are used somewhat interchangeably. For example, "I'm going to use the bathroom before we go" or "I'm going to hit the restroom before our next meeting" would both be acceptable usage, and nobody would misunderstand what you meant, or find it too out of place.

On a related note, I've always found the verbs associated with relieving one's self to be interesting. In America, you generally use "take" (take a pee, take a leak, take a poop, take a dump, etc.) used to describe the act. While in some parts of the world, I believe make is the preferred verb (make a wee, make a pee, make a poop). It always sounds funny to me, but probably more accurate than take! If anything, you're leaving a pee/poop. :)

Answer 5

The difference between "bathroom" and "restroom" is not the level of formality, it's the level of euphemism. "Bathroom" is a partial euphemism because it implies that you only go in there in order to wash up. "Restroom" is a complete euphemism, because people don't actually go in there to rest at all. English doesn't really have any useful non-euphemistic word for this. There are words that started out earlier, like "privy" and "toilet," but they also originated as euphemisms. "Toilet" is awkward because it can refer to either the porcelain chair or the whole room. (It originally just meant the activity of cleaning up, as in "making your toilet.")

Because having these places in public involves having people do something in public that they'd rather do in private, signs normally try to soften the blow by using the greater euphemism, which is "restroom." Where I live (California), it's unusual to hear people refer to the "restroom" in their own house, and when they do, it comes off as a very silly genteelism.

Related: https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/8281/washroom-restroom-bathroom-lavatory-toilet-or-toilet-room

Answer 6

I'd agree that the difference between "restroom" and "bathroom" is formality, so I won't expand on that from other Answers.

What I will talk about are the variety of euphemisms that Ben Cromwell brushed up against, but didn't go into the list Americans use. Some of them are crude and some of them have specific use cases. I'll try to denote some of these as I go.

Polite or formal:

• Restroom
• Gentlemen's/Ladies/Lady's room
• Men's/Women's room
• Washroom
• Powder room (generally feminine use only)
• Water closet (not common, generally will be assumed used by a foreigner, and may not be understood by many)
• The Facilities
• Latrine (generally only military or veterans use this)
• Family restroom (generally used by parents with little kids of opposite gender or need to change a baby's diaper)

Benign, informal, or common:

• Unisex restroom (not quite common yet and could unfortunately be considered stigmatized in some regions or by some people. Can also refer to a Family Restroom.)
• Bathroom
• Toilet
• Stool
• Head (generally only military or veterans use this, used like "hit the head")
• The john
• Little Boy's/Girl's room
• Outhouse (ye olde version, referring to when bathrooms were separate from the main house. Uncommonly, may also refer to a temporary chemical toilet, such as for outdoor events.)
• Port-o-Potty (Refers to a temporary chemical toilet, such as for outdoor events.)
• Port-o-Pot, Port-o-john (Same as above)
• Potty (mostly kids or parents of small kids use this)
• Can (Example usage: I have to hit the can.)

Very informal, but humorous:

• Porcelain Throne
• Throne room
• Throne
• Reading room
• Single/Double/Multi hole (referencing how many stools are in the bathroom, as well as a reference to how outhouses used to be built. May also be considered a crude usage by some.)

Crude, rude, or obnoxious:

• Shitter
• Crapper
• Porcelain God/Goddess
• Pisser
• The bog (Br. Eng.)
• The dunny (Aus. Eng.)

There's also a wide variety of phrases that are generally informal and try to abstract the nature of the act further, or even draw attention to it.

• Call of Nature
• Powder my nose (for women)
• I got/have to go (Implied that it's go to the restroom, unless there's other context.)
• Drain the main vein, drain the snake (crude)
• Make a deposit (crude)
• Drop off the wife and kids (crude)
• Pinch a loaf (crude)
• Take a leak/piss/{other specific word} (crude)
• Go pee-pee (generally used by little kids or parents when talking to little kids)
• Go number 1 (or 2). (crude)

I think I've hit the majority of words, phrases, and other relevant references used across the USA that should be understood almost anywhere. There are specific cases that I've left out, but because they have specific uses, such as walking into a "cowboy bar" and the restrooms being labeled as "cowboy" and "cowgirl", but asking in a "normal" way should still get you to the correct spot.

There may also be some regional words or phrases that I simply don't know about. There may also be some varieties I've simply forgotten about. Feel free to add them in comments if you know something I don't, as well as please specify how formal, informal, crude, or other use it is.

Conclusion

To bring this back to the original question, the first 2 sections above would likely be used in a workplace. The 2nd section would be used within a familiar group of coworkers without too much problem, but probably not with a "bigwig" or a manager around. The last 3 sections (including the phrases) are generally not work or business appropriate.

"I have to go" might be used without context, but it could easily be misunderstood that you need to leave for the day, go to a meeting, go to lunch, a doctor's appointment, or something else. This can also be easily misunderstood in everyday usage, too, so generally it's only used when there's previous context as to where you are going.