wash
Noun pluralwashes
Pluralwashes
- 1To clean someone or something, including oneself, with water and usually soap.
Volunteers wash the rescued dogs before they go up for adoption.
He washed the car in the driveway on Sunday morning.
UsageThe object is usually what gets clean, wash the dishes; for dirt, add off or out: wash the mud off.
- 2The act or process of cleaning something, or being cleaned, with water or another liquid.
After the long hike, her boots were ready for a thorough wash.
After the long dusty drive, the car badly needed a good wash.
UsageUsually give something a wash, or say it needs a wash.
- 3(Of moving water) to carry something away, along, or ashore, or to wear it down; (of a thing) to be carried off or worn away by moving water.
Storm surges wash sand from the dunes every winter.
The swollen river washed entire trees toward the sea.
UsageUsually with a direction word: washed away, washed ashore, washed downstream.
- 4A liquid used for cleaning or rinsing, especially a lotion or solution applied to the skin or body for hygienic or medicinal purposes.
The mechanic kept a degreasing wash on the bench for oily parts.
The vet sent us home with a medicated wash for the dog's itchy skin.
- 5To withstand washing without being damaged; to be suitable for cleaning with water.
Good cotton sheets wash easily and last for years.
The label warns that the dress will not wash without losing its shape.
UsageOften with well or easily: sheets wash easily, this shirt washes well.
Similarlaunder
- 6(Of water or waves) to flow over or against something, wetting it, often with a lapping or splashing sound.
At high tide, the waves wash the lower steps of the pier.
Her cheeks were washed with tears as she read the old letter.
Similarlap, bathe, splash, wet
Note
Poets have kept this sense busy, usually in the passive with 'with' or 'in': Milton's fresh-blown roses washed in dew, Longfellow's landscape washed with a cold gray mist. In that construction the liquid barely touches. Dew and mist lay a soft film over the scene rather than soaking it. In plain prose the waves wash the shore, and nothing is being cleaned.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- In L'Allegro, Milton wrote 'And fresh-blown Roses washt in dew,'—'in', not 'with'. gutenberg.org
- The attribution is correct, but The Courtship of Miles Standish reads 'Washed with a cold gray mist', without the comma and with 'gray'. gutenberg.org
- 7A thin, often translucent layer of diluted paint, ink, or color brushed over a surface, or a thin coating of metal.
She laid a delicate wash of color over the entire watercolor.
The background was built up from several light washes.
UsageUsually lay a wash, or a wash of color: a pale blue wash.
Note
A painter's term for diluted color laid on broadly so that the paper or ground glows through it. Watercolorists build pictures from washes, one transparent layer over another, often beginning with the background. The verb names the same technique as an action, to wash a drawing with color, and the usual collocation is to lay a wash.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
- A wash consists of diluted color applied broadly and transparently. npg.org.uk
- The underlying paper contributes brightness through transparent watercolor. modernamuseet.se
- Watercolor paintings can be built by applying successive washes. pressbooks.palomar.edu
- Beginning with a background wash is an established watercolor practice. buttsburyprimary.essex.sch.uk
Less common meanings
- 8
- 9A situation in which gains and losses balance exactly, leaving no overall change.
The extra sales were offset by higher shipping costs, so the quarter was a wash.
Politically, the reform was a wash: it pleased one group and angered another in equal measure.
UsageUsually it's a wash or was a wash; not the same as a washout, a total failure.
- 10In arid and semi-arid regions, the usually dry bed of a stream that flows only intermittently; an arroyo or wadi.
The trail dropped into a sandy wash lined with mesquite.
Flash floods can turn a quiet desert wash into a torrent within minutes.
Similararroyo, wadi, gully, gulch
Note
Desert country names its dry streambeds this way, often as proper names: Rock Spring Wash joins Watson Wash in the East Mojave. A wash may carry surface water for only a few hours a year, yet ecologists treat desert-wash systems as a habitat of their own, sometimes called xero-riparian. Arroyo and wadi name the same landform.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
- Rock Spring Wash joins Watson Wash in the eastern Mojave Desert. parkplanning.nps.gov
- A desert wash may carry surface water for only a few hours a year. digitallibrary.desertmuseum.org
- Ecologists recognize desert-wash habitats, also called xeroriparian habitats. desertmuseum.org
- Arroyo and wadi can denote the dry, intermittently flowing streambed described here. en.wiktionary.org
- 11
- 12To be convincing enough to hold up when challenged or examined.
Their claim that the delay was unavoidable just doesn't wash.
The argument failed to wash with anyone who knew the facts.
UsageMostly negative: that won't wash, doesn't wash; add with for the audience: won't wash with voters.
Similarfly
Note
A character in Agatha Christie's The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920) dismisses a theory with 'I don't think that will wash', and commentators still use it the same way.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Agatha Christie wrote The Mysterious Affair at Styles, first published in 1920. en.wikisource.org
- A character, John Cavendish, says 'I don't think that will wash' when rejecting Hastings's theory about poisoning the coffee. gutenberg.org
- 13Waves breaking against a shore, or the shallow water that surges forward up a beach.
The steady wash against the pebbles lulled them to sleep.
Children chased the wash as it spread thin across the flat sand.
UsageUsually with the: the wash of the sea, the wash of the waves.
Note
Melville sets it beside the wind in the cordage in Billy Budd. Norman Lindsay's painter in Age of Consent struggles to catch its incessantly moving patterns.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- Herman Melville pairs the wash of the sea with the wind in the cordage in Billy Budd. gutenberg.net.au
- Norman Lindsay wrote Age of Consent, whose central character is a painter. en.wikipedia.org
- The painter in Age of Consent struggles to depict the moving patterns of the wash. en.wiktionary.org
- 14The disturbed water left behind a moving boat or ship, or the disturbed air left behind a moving aircraft.
The tugboat's wash set the harbor buoys bobbing.
Swimmers were warned to stay clear of the wash behind passing vessels.
Note
A sailor's word for the trouble a vessel leaves behind. The same word covers the air churned up behind aircraft and the water stirred by oars and paddles. Engineers write of wake wash from high-speed vessels, and small craft are told to sail clear of a ship's wash to avoid rocking.
- 15To use flowing water to separate valuable material, such as gold, from the worthless material around it.
Prospectors wash river gravel to recover specks of gold.
The crew washed the ore to draw out the heavier metal.
Note
A miner's word, and a precise one: the water does the sorting. Loosened gravel or ore is run through a stream, the lighter waste is carried off, and the heavier valuable particles, gold above all, stay behind. The object of the verb is usually the material being sorted, such as gravel or ore, though miners also speak of washing gold.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- Flowing water separates gold from gravel, carrying away waste while gold is retained. nps.gov
- Gold is retained because it is heavier than the accompanying material. nps.gov
- The object can also be gold: the construction “wash gold” is attested. gutenberg.org
- 16
- 17A shallow stretch or body of water.
- 18A complete failure; a venture that comes to nothing.
- 19In stage or film lighting, a broad, even spread of light, often of one color, over a whole area; also, a light fixture that produces it.
- 20To mix up the tiles before a new game so that their arrangement is random; to shuffle.
- 21A sham sale of securities between parties of one interest, or by a broker who is both buyer and seller and serves his own gain rather than the client's.
- 22The sloped upper surface of a building member or material, shaped to shed water; also, a structure formed to collect and carry water away.
- 23In distilling, wort that has been fermented but has not yet had the spirit taken out of it.
- 24During steelmaking, to purify liquid iron of its phosphorus with additions of iron oxide, sometimes along with manganese oxide.
- 25To clean a gas by bubbling it through or passing it over a liquid that dissolves its impurities.
- 26The flat, broad end of an oar that pushes against the water.
- 27Soil and sand that flowing water has carried off toward rivers and the ocean.
- 28Low land that water floods at times and leaves dry at others, a shallow stretch of a river or inlet, or a marsh.
- 29Kitchen scraps and dirty dishwater, often fed to pigs.
- 30In the West Indies, a blend of molasses, water, skimmings, and leftover still liquid that is distilled to make rum.
- 31A measure of oysters equal to ten bushels.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origin
From Middle English wasshen, from Old English wascan, going back through Proto-Germanic *waskaną ("to wash, get wet") to the Proto-Indo-European root *wed- ("wet; water"). It is related to Dutch wassen, German waschen, and Swedish vaska, all meaning "to wash."
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 6 facts
- Wash derives from Middle English wasshen and Old English wascan. en.wiktionary.org
- The ancestry includes Proto-Germanic *waskaną, glossed as 'to wash, get wet'. en.wiktionary.org
- The Proto-Germanic verb ultimately derives from the Proto-Indo-European root *wed-, meaning 'wet, water'. en.wiktionary.org
- Dutch wassen is related to wash and means 'to wash'. en.wiktionary.org
- German waschen is related to wash and means 'to wash'. en.wiktionary.org
- Swedish vaska is related to wash and means 'to wash'. en.wiktionary.org