Past tense of whitewash
regular verb
The past tense of whitewash is whitewashed. The past participle is also whitewashed.
Forms of whitewash
| Base form (V1) | whitewash /ˈwaɪtwɒʃ/ |
|---|---|
| Past tense (V2) | whitewashed |
| Past participle (V3) | whitewashed |
| Present participle | whitewashing |
| Third person singular | whitewashes |
Whitewashed in a sentence
- The houses looked very bright after they had whitewashed the whole neighbourhood.
- Provided that any such window or skylight may be whitewashed or shaded for the purpose of mitigating heat or glare.1978, Commissioner for Labour, “Factories and Industrial Undertakings (Amendment) Regulations 1978”, in Hong Kong Government Gazette, page...
- Going to a public school in a very white state, I was given a very whitewashed education."2021, Dave Zirin, The Kaepernick Effect: Taking a Knee, Changing the World, The New Press, →ISBN, page 153. From the entry whitewashed
- A woman worked a garden behind a neat whitewashed fence, a real Acacia Avenue kind of scene.2013 June 20, Stephen Baxter, Terry Pratchett, The Long War: (Long Earth 2), Random House, →ISBN, page 117. From the entry Acacia Avenue
- The company has built pretty little whitewashed renthouses with front porches and fenced-in yards.2008, Helen Lavinia Underwood, Under Cedar Shades. From the entry renthouse
Meaning of whitewash
- noun A mixture of a powdered mineral substance (often slaked lime (containing calcium hydroxide), chalk (calcium carbonate), or both) and water which is used for painting surfaces such as fences and walls bright white.
- noun A thing used to hide mistakes, or to create an appearance of honesty, propriety, etc.; also (often politics), an act of hiding mistakes or creating an appearance of honesty, propriety, etc.; especially, a campaign, investigation, etc., which intentionally hides or overlooks unfavourable facts.
- noun An act of clearing a person's debts, especially through a declaration of bankruptcy by a court.
Questions about the past tense of whitewash
- What is the past tense of whitewash?
- The past tense of whitewash is whitewashed.
- What is the past participle of whitewash?
- The past participle of whitewash is whitewashed.
- Is whitewash a regular or irregular verb?
- Whitewash is a regular verb: its past tense adds -ed.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: whitewash (page history and authors) and the entries of its forms. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws left out forms marked obsolete, archaic, rare or dialectal and added the examples. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this page: “Past tense of whitewash.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/past-tense/whitewash. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.