Word.ws English Dictionary

half-bath

/ˈhæf ˌbæθ/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Philippines/ˌhɐf ˈbɐːθ/

half-bath noun: a short bath of the feet, limbs, and abdomen that only reaches up to the chest where the upper half of the body is typically kept dry with minimal splashing (especially with water temperature not above 95°F nor below 75°F, and usually prescribed for the sick or unwell as a form of hydrotherapy).

half-bath: a short bath of the feet, limbs, and abdomen that only reaches up to the chest where the upper half...
Image: Sergey Fat, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

half-bath (plural half-baths)

  1. (US) A short bath of the feet, limbs, and abdomen that only reaches up to the chest where the upper half of the body is typically kept dry with minimal splashing (especially with water temperature not above 95°F nor below 75°F, and usually prescribed for the sick or unwell as a form of hydrotherapy)
  2. (Philippines) A short bath where the head, especially the hair, is kept dry (especially a shower bath at night before sleep)
    • […] suction force which the thoracic cavity exerts upon the venous blood, the half bath is one of choice and found preference in patient with less robust natural constitution and particularly in those with cardiac weakness and in elderly persons suffering from sclerosis of the coronary arteries....1937, Bureau of Health, Commonwealth of the Philippines, Monthly Bulletin of the Philippine Health Service, volumes 17-18, Bureau of Printing, page 595

Forms of half-bath

pluralhalf-baths
alternative formhalf bath

Origin of half-bath

From half + bath.

Questions about half-bath

What does half-bath mean?
Half-bath means a short bath of the feet, limbs, and abdomen that only reaches up to the chest where the upper half of the body is typically kept dry with minimal splashing (especially with water temperature not above 95°F nor below 75°F, and usually prescribed for the sick or unwell as a form of hydrotherapy).
What part of speech is half-bath?
Half-bath is a noun.
How do you pronounce half-bath?
Half-bath is pronounced /ˈhæf ˌbæθ/ (US).
What is the plural of half-bath?
The plural of half-bath is half-baths.

Words near half-bath in the dictionary

  1. half-baptism
  2. half-baptisms
  3. half-barrier
  4. half-barriers
  5. half-bat
  6. half-bath
  7. half-bats
  8. half-birthday
  9. half-birthdays
  10. half-blood
  11. half-blooded

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: half-bath (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-half bath.wav.

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