jawbox

• jaw-box

jaw +‎ box. In old tenements usually placed next to the kitchen window, enabling housewives to talk ("jaw") to each other across the tenement courtyard while doing washing up.

jawbox (plural jawboxes)

1. (Scotland, dated) A tenement sink.

   Synonym: jaw-hole

   • 1983, Bernard MacLaverty, Cal (chapter 3, p.90 in the 1998 Vintage paperback edition)

     After a week he had to accept that he was growing a black beard, not because he wanted one, but because he could think of no way of shaving. There was a jaw-box in the tiny kitchen but no taps.

   • 2022, Liam McIlvanney, The Heretic, page 5:

     She snatches towels from the laundry basket — two, three, four —soaks them at the jawbox sink and lays them along the bottom of the kitchen door.