Word.ws English Dictionary

earth-bathing

earth-bathing noun: the practice of partially or wholly burying the human body in fresh earth (soil) as a form of health therapy, promoted in the 1790s by Scottish physician James Graham, who claimed that the moisture and coolness of soil could draw out morbid humours and restore bodily vigor.

earth-bathing: the practice of partially or wholly burying the human body in fresh earth (soil) as a form of...
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Noun (1)

earth-bathing (uncountable)

  1. (historical) The practice of partially or wholly burying the human body in fresh earth (soil) as a form of health therapy, promoted in the 1790s by Scottish physician James Graham, who claimed that the moisture and coolness of soil could draw out morbid humours and restore bodily vigor.

Noun (2) capitalized: Earth-Bathing

Earth-Bathing (uncountable)

  1. (alternative) Alternative form of earth-bathing.

Noun (3) capitalized: Earth-bathing

Earth-bathing (uncountable)

  1. (alternative) Alternative form of earth-bathing.

Origin of earth-bathing

Compound of earth + bathing. Widely understood to have been coined Scottish physician James Graham in the late 1780s or early 1790s. Possibly coined earlier by Gerard van Swieten in 1765 in references to practices found in the Kingdom of Granada (writing "per balneum terrae," Latin for "bath of earth").

Questions about earth-bathing

What does earth-bathing mean?
Earth-bathing means the practice of partially or wholly burying the human body in fresh earth (soil) as a form of health therapy, promoted in the 1790s by Scottish physician James Graham, who claimed that the moisture and coolness of soil could draw out morbid humours and restore bodily vigor.
What part of speech is earth-bathing?
Earth-bathing is a noun.

Words near earth-bathing in the dictionary

  1. earth up
  2. earth wire
  3. Earth's third pole
  4. earth-apple
  5. earth-apples
  6. earth-bathing
  7. earth-berg
  8. earth-bergs
  9. earth-berries
  10. earth-berry
  11. earth-born

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: earth-bathing (page history and authors); Earth-Bathing (page history and authors); Earth-bathing (page history and authors). 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.

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