1 A sink used for washing food before its preparation, for washing utensils after a meal, or for washing clothes. Traditionally, in Japan, it was a long rectangular trough made of timber or stone, which was either mounted on a stand or placed upon the floor. The former type was in used in urban vernacular residences *machiya 町家 of Kyoto in the 17th century, to judge from an illustration on a *rakuchūrakugai-zu 洛中洛外図, and was common in the Kinki 近畿 region by the later Edo period. The squatting type was widely used in many other parts of the country by the end of the Edo period. The widespread adoption of the nagashi would seem to have been an Edo period development. Earlier, portable containers such as wooden tubs, oke 桶, were probably used, perhaps largely out of doors. By the early Edo period, slatted raised-floor areas of bamboo or timber for use as wet areas where dish washing and cleaning of food took place, were a common feature of elite houses, both inside and outside. They were equipped with tubs, buckets and often a well *ido 井戸, and may be considered a kind of nagashi. Drainage channels beneath the nagashi carried away the waste water. A common alternative term for the nagashi is hashiri 走り. Less common terms include mizudana 水棚, and tanazu 棚簀.
2 The washing area in a public bath, sentō 銭湯.
3 A service room with a timber floor containing a well and a sink at the rear of vernacular houses *minka 民家, in the Aizu Wakamatsu 会津若松 area of Fukushima Prefecture in the Edo period.
4 A washing area with a low timber floor at the rear of the the earthen-floored area *doma 土間, of farmhouses in parts of Akita and Yamagata Prefectures.
5 An unfloored cooking and service area at the rear of the doma in farmhouses in many districts, including parts of Niigata, Saitama, Toyama, Shimane, Kagawa and Ehime Prefectures. See also *mizuya 水屋.