Bathtub

How to spell bathtub

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce bathtub

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does bathtub mean?

1. nounA large fixed basin that you fill with water and sit in to bathe.

Bathtub in a sentence

• The plumber sealed the edge of the bathtub with fresh silicone.

• She let the children splash in the bathtub after a muddy afternoon.

Where does bathtub come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a transparent compound of two old, plain words. 'Bath' descends from the Old English 'bæth', a word shared across the Germanic languages for the act of washing the body in water and for the vessel used to do it. 'Tub' arrived in late Middle English, probably from the Middle Dutch or Middle Low German 'tubbe', meaning an open wooden container, the same kind of stave-built vessel a cooper would make. The two were joined into 'bathtub' relatively recently, chiefly in nineteenth-century American usage, to name the fixed basin you bathe in, as plumbing brought bathing indoors. Because both halves are ordinary English words spelled the way they sound, the only thing to remember is that the compound is written as a single solid word, with the silent reminder that 'bath' keeps its 'th' even though 'tub' begins with a 't'.

How the word is built

• bath (vessel for washing)
• tub (open container)