Word.ws English Dictionary

sustainwashing

sustainwashing noun: the sustainability analogue of greenwashing (or subset thereof, in ecologic subsenses). Also the present participle and gerund of sustainwash.

Noun

sustainwashing (uncountable)

  1. (gerund counterpart to, and coeval with, the present participial verb form) The sustainability analogue of greenwashing (or subset thereof, in ecologic subsenses).
    • wondering whether the advertisement's talk of sustainability might be a bit of sustainwashing

Also used as

sustainwashing is also the present participle and gerund of sustainwash.

Origin of sustainwashing

From sustain + -wash + -ing, following the established pattern of greenwashing, pinkwashing, purplewashing, and similar forms (which came ultimately from the figurative-extension sense of whitewashing as "slapping a paintjob over the truth to hide it and to give a specious nice appearance").

Questions about sustainwashing

What does sustainwashing mean?
Sustainwashing means the sustainability analogue of greenwashing (or subset thereof, in ecologic subsenses).
What part of speech is sustainwashing?
Sustainwashing is a noun.

Words near sustainwashing in the dictionary

  1. sustainments
  2. sustains
  3. sustainwash
  4. sustainwashed
  5. sustainwashes
  6. sustainwashing
  7. Sustaita
  8. Sustaitas
  9. sustenacular
  10. sustenance
  11. sustenances

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sustainwashing (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: “sustainwashing.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sustainwashing. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.