Word.ws English Dictionary

lavabos

lavabos is the plural of lavabo.

Meaning of lavabo

Noun

lavabo (plural lavabos or lavaboes)

  1. A ritual involving the washing of one's hands at a church's offertory before handling the Eucharist.
    Synonyms:
    lavatory
  2. The small towel used to dry the priest's hands following the ritual.
    • These small liturgical towels got […] the name of Lavabo cloths or Lavaboes.1870, Daniel Rock, Textile Fabrics, page 203
  3. A washbasin, particularly (Christianity) the one in a church used in the ritual.
    • […] the […] pontiff, as he […] moved his hands […] at the Lavabo, or at the various benedictions […]1885, Walter Horatio Peter, Marius the Epicurean, Bk. iv, Ch. xxiii
    Synonyms:
    washbasin
  4. A trough used for washing at some medieval monasteries.
  5. (euphemistic, humorous) A lavatory: a room used for urination and defecation.
    • Mr. Pond fussed out and she heard the door of the little lavabo in the passage open with a loud creak.1930, Dorothy L. Sayers, chapter XIV, in Strong Poision, page 177

Questions about lavabos

What is lavabos the plural of?
Lavabos is the plural of lavabo.

Words near lavabos in the dictionary

  1. lava ware
  2. lava-lava
  3. lava-like
  4. lavabo
  5. lavaboes
  6. lavabos
  7. Lavaca
  8. Lavaca County
  9. lavacast
  10. lavacasted
  11. lavacasting

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: lavabos (page history and authors); lavabo (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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Cite this entry: “lavabos.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/lavabos. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.