wash

verb

• 1 [with object] clean with water and, typically, soap or detergent:I stripped and washed myself all over
• [no object] North American clean oneself, especially one’s hands and face with soap and water.
• (with reference to a stain or dirt) remove or be removed by cleaning with water and detergent:they have to keep washing the mold off the walls figurativeall that hate can’t wash away the guilt [no object]:the dirt on his clothes would easily wash out
• [no object] (of fabric, a garment, or dye) withstand cleaning to a specified degree without shrinking or fading:a linen-mix yarn that washes well
• [no object] do one’s laundry:I need someone to cook and wash for me
• literary wet or moisten (something) thoroughly:you are beautiful with your face washed with rain

• 2 [with object] (of flowing water) carry (someone or something) in a particular direction:floods washed away the bridges
• [no object] be carried by flowing water:an oil slick washed up on the beaches
• [no object] (especially of waves) sweep, move, or splash in a particular direction:the sea began to wash along the decks
• (of a river, sea, or lake) flow through or lap against (a country, coast, etc.):offshore islands washed by warm blue seas
• sift metallic particles from (earth or gravel) by running water through it.

• 3 [with object] brush with a thin coat of diluted paint or ink:the walls were washed with shades of umber
• (wash something with) coat inferior metal with (a film of gold or silver from a solution).

• 4 [no object] informal seem convincing or genuine:charm won’t wash with this crew

noun

• 1 [usually in singular] an act of washing something or an instance of being washed.
• a quantity of clothes needing to be or just having been washed:she hung out her Tuesday wash
• a medicinal or cleansing solution:mouth wash

• 2 [in singular] the disturbed water or air behind a moving boat or aircraft or the sound made by this:the wash of a motorboat
• the surging of water or breaking of waves or the sound made by this:the wash of waves on the pebbled beach

• 3a layer of paint or metal spread thinly on a surface:the walls were covered with a pale lemon wash

• 4silt or gravel carried by a stream or river and deposited as sediment.
• a sandbank exposed only at low tide.
• (in the western US) a dry bed of a stream, typically in a ravine, that flows only seasonally.

• 5kitchen slops and other food waste fed to pigs.

• 6malt fermenting in preparation for distillation.

• 7 [in singular] North American informal a situation or result that is of no benefit to either of two opposing sides:the plan’s impact on jobs would be a wash, creating as many as it costs