Crap

QUESTION
Does anyone know where the word "CRAP" came from?
Was it SIR THOMAS CRAPPER, Victorian engineer?

ANSWER
No, SIR THOMAS CRAPPER did NOT invent the flush toilet and thus give his name to posterity.

The word CRAP, meaning excrement, is from the Old French, via Middle English, CRAPPE, which stood for the grain that was rodden underfoot in a barn. The word originally derives from the Latin CRAPPA.

But there was a THOMAS CRAPPER, 1837-1910, who was
a Victorian plumbing engineer and businessman.

Crapper is often falsely credited with inventing THE SILENT VALVELESS WATER WASTER PREVENTER, a type of toilet that could effectively flush when the tank was half full.

Crapper owned a plumbing supply company and he marketed this device and may have bought the patent rights from the inventor, an ALBERT GIBLIN, but he did not invent it. Nor did he lend his name to the word crap.

This was a case where an appropriately named man is associated with a field of endeavor, an aptronym, if you will, not an eponym.

The OED2 traces the use of the word CRAP, meaning excrement, to at least to 1846, crapping ken for a water closet.

Since Crapper was only nine years old in 1846, his name is obviously not the origin of the word.

[The moral of the story? You invent something perfectly useful and in the end are forever associated with shit. Let this be a lesson to all.]