Word.ws English Dictionary

prop wash

prop wash noun: the disturbed mass of air or water pushed aft (or forward when in reverse) by the propeller of an aircraft or propeller-driven watercraft.

Noun

prop wash (countable and uncountable, plural prop washes)

  1. The disturbed mass of air or water pushed aft (or forward when in reverse) by the propeller of an aircraft or propeller-driven watercraft.
    • The plane's large rear doors swallowed up my friend in superfast time, its departure sandblasting everyone in red prop wash as it vaporised down the main street and into the afternoon's dust-bowl sky.2005, Paul Carter, Don't Tell Mum I Work on the Rigs, Crows Nest: Allen and Unwin, page 23
    Synonyms:
    prop blast
  2. A byproduct of thrust produced by a propeller.
  3. (humorous) A mythical substance supposedly used to wash propellers.
    • We sent the new recruit to obtain a bucket of prop wash.

Synonyms of prop wash

Forms of prop wash

pluralprop washes

Questions about prop wash

What does prop wash mean?
Prop wash means the disturbed mass of air or water pushed aft (or forward when in reverse) by the propeller of an aircraft or propeller-driven watercraft.
What part of speech is prop wash?
Prop wash is a noun.
What is the plural of prop wash?
The plural of prop wash is prop washes.

Words near prop wash in the dictionary

  1. prop swords
  2. prop up
  3. prop up the bar
  4. prop vowel
  5. prop vowels
  6. prop wash
  7. prop washes
  8. prop-
  9. prop-jet
  10. prop-jets
  11. prop.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: prop wash (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:

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

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