Wash
verbTo clean something or someone with water and usually soap.
How to spell wash
4 letters · 1 syllable
How to pronounce wash
What does wash mean?
- verbTo clean something or someone with water and usually soap.
- nounA quantity of clothes or items being cleaned, or the act of cleaning with water.
Wash in a sentence
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verb
She likes to wash the dishes right after dinner.
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noun
She put a dark wash on before leaving for work.
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verb
Remember to wash your hands before handling the food.
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noun
The towels are still drying after this morning's wash.
Where does wash come from?
Language of origin: Germanic
This is a thoroughly native English word, descending from the Old English verb wascan, meaning 'to clean with water'. It belongs to the wider Germanic family and is closely related to the Dutch wassen and the German waschen, all of which trace back to a Proto-Germanic root linked to the idea of water itself. The same watery root sits behind the English word 'water', which helps explain why washing has always meant working with water in particular rather than any kind of cleaning. The noun sense, covering both the act of washing and the clothes set aside to be cleaned, grew naturally out of the verb over the centuries. Because the spelling is short and phonetic, with the single 'sh' digraph doing exactly the job it sounds like, it has stayed remarkably stable since Anglo-Saxon times.
How the word is built
- wash (from Old English wascan: to cleanse with water)
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