handwash

handwash noun: a liquid soap for washing the hands. Also the alternative form of hand wash.

Image: Marcus Quigmire from Florida, USA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

handwash (countable and uncountable, plural handwashes)

A liquid soap for washing the hands.
- Remove everyday germs and neutralise cooking odours with our antibacterial handwash.
- Mum will always ask directly: “Amani, have you been washing your hands again?” Sounds like a strange question, doesn’t it? I mean, most parents would be pleased to have a hygienic child. But there’s that and then there’s using a whole bottle of handwash a day.2017, Aisha Bushby, “Marionette Girl”, in A Change Is Gonna Come, London: Stripes Publishing, →ISBN, pages 32–33

handwash is also the alternative form of hand wash.

Noun
plural	handwashes
alternative form	hand wash
alternative form	hand-wash
Verb
third-person singular present	handwashes
present participle	handwashing
past participle	handwashed
past	handwashed

From hand + wash.

What does handwash mean?: Handwash means a liquid soap for washing the hands.
What part of speech is handwash?: Handwash is a noun.
What is the plural of handwash?: The plural of handwash is handwashes.

Adapted from Wiktionary: handwash (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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

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