vomitorium

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   architecture: a passage or entrance through or behind tiers of seats in a theater, amphitheater, or stadium, designed to let crowds enter or leave rapidly

   Spectators poured through the eastern vomitorium after the performance.

2. 2
   noun

   nonstandard or humorous: a place intended for vomiting, based on the mistaken belief that ancient Romans used special rooms to empty their stomachs during feasts

   The restaurant jokingly labeled the tiled washroom its vomitorium.

Borrowed from Late Latin vomitorium, from Latin vomere, 'to spew forth.' The architectural passage was so named because it discharged crowds rapidly from a venue. It did not historically mean a Roman banquet room for deliberate vomiting; that familiar sense arose later through misunderstanding and humorous reuse.

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