douche

/duːʃ/

douche noun: a jet or current of water or vapour directed upon some part of the body to benefit it medicinally; in particular, such a jet directed at the vagina for irrigation. Also the ellipsis of douchebag.

Noun

douche (plural douches)

A jet or current of water or vapour directed upon some part of the body to benefit it medicinally; in particular, such a jet directed at the vagina for irrigation.
- Massage, or kneading of the whole body, is carried out in this bath after which a steam douche or a warm spray is turned upon the affected parts, according to the nature of the case.1892, Robert Ottiwell Gifford-Bennet, Buxton and its Medicinal Waters, London: John Heywood
- Earth, the great mother, begins to live. Romping like a child she rises from her bath in the spring floods, from her douche in the spring rain.1898 Selma Lagerlöf (trans. Pauline Bancroft Flach), The Story of Gösta Berling, Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, Part II, Chapter I, p. 249 https://archive.org/details/storygstaberlin02lagegoog
Something that produces the jet or current in the previous sense, such as a syringe.
(obsolete) A jet or spray of any liquid.
- A douche of spray blinded my brother for a moment. When his eyes were clear of that he saw the monster had passed and was rushing landward.1895–1897, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, “The Thunder-Child”, in “The War of the Worlds”, in Pearson’s, London: C[yril] Arthur Pearson, published 1897, page 77, column 1

Verb

douche (third-person singular simple present douches, present participle douching, simple past and past participle douched)

(transitive) To administer a douche to; to shower; to douse
- […] a frizzy half-white woman who looked as if she had fallen into a flour-sack, her face was so deep in powder, and her frizzy hair and her brown silk dress so douched with the white dust of it.1926, D. H. Lawrence, chapter II, in The Plumed Serpent, New York: Knopf
- Mrs. McLash's anger was gone completely, douched not nearly so much by the beer as by this attention to her son.1938, Xavier Herbert, chapter VI, in Capricornia, page 81
(intransitive) To use a douche.
- (In a 2002 study, 58.5 percent of Black women reported douching and 35.6 percent of Hispanic women said they did the same, compared with 26.6 percent of white women.)2023 October 1, Jordyn Holman, “Gen Z Wants Feminine Care Brands to Just Say Vagina”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

Also used as

douche is also the ellipsis of douchebag.

douche meaning in Telugu, Kannada, Nepali and Arabic

douche in Telugu

డౌచ్

douche in Kannada

ಡೌಚ್, ಡೌಚೆ

douche in Nepali

डाउचे

douche in Arabic

a jet or current of water or vapour directed upon some part of the body to benefit it medicinally: وَابِل wābil, دُوش dūš

Examples of douche in a sentence

In the bathroom, they immersed him in a tub of warm water, and then pulled him out and put him under a cold douche.1973, Jaroslav Hašek, chapter 4, in Cecil Parrott, transl., The Good Soldier Švejk, London: William Heinemann, page 32:
The boxes would reek of the smell of rich plum cake, with brandy or sherry douched over it.1992, Edna O'Brien, chapter 9, in Time and Tide, New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, page 66:

All 13 example sentences with douche

Forms of douche

Noun
plural	douches
Verb
third-person singular present	douches
present participle	douching
past participle	douched
past	douched

Plural of douche: douches

Origin of douche

Borrowed from French douche (“shower”), from Italian doccia (“shower”).

Words formed from douche

Phrases with douche

Words that rhyme with douche

1 more rhymesFewer rhymes

tarboosh

Questions about douche

What does douche mean?: Douche means a jet or current of water or vapour directed upon some part of the body to benefit it medicinally; in particular, such a jet directed at the vagina for irrigation.
What is douche in Telugu?: Douche in Telugu is డౌచ్. See Douche meaning in Telugu.
How do you use douche in a sentence?: In the bathroom, they immersed him in a tub of warm water, and then pulled him out and put him under a cold douche.
What part of speech is douche?: Douche can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce douche?: Douche is pronounced /duːʃ/.
What is the plural of douche?: The plural of douche is douches.

Words near douche in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: douche (page history and authors); douche (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); douche (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); douche (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-uk-douche.ogg.

Cite this entry: “douche.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/douche. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.