Word.ws English Dictionary

threw the baby out with the bathwater

threw the baby out with the bathwater is the simple past of throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Meaning of throw the baby out with the bathwater

Verb

throw the baby out with the bathwater (third-person singular simple present throws the baby out with the bathwater, present participle throwing the baby out with the bathwater, simple past threw the baby out with the bathwater, past participle thrown the baby out with the bathwater)

  1. (idiomatic) To discard, inadvertently or through overzealousness, something valuable or essential ("the baby") in the process of removing or rejecting something unwanted or undesirable ("the bathwater").
    • They cancelled the entire project because the new management didn't like the prototype, but I think they threw the baby out with the bathwater.

Questions about threw the baby out with the bathwater

What is threw the baby out with the bathwater the simple past of?
Threw the baby out with the bathwater is the simple past of throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Words near threw the baby out with the bathwater in the dictionary

  1. threw spaghetti against the wall
  2. threw spaghetti at the wall
  3. threw stones
  4. threw stones in a glass house
  5. threw tantrums
  6. threw the baby out with the bathwater
  7. threw the book at
  8. threw the bull
  9. threw the bull around
  10. threw the handkerchief
  11. threw the hatchet

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: threw the baby out with the bathwater (page history and authors); throw the baby out with the bathwater (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: “threw the baby out with the bathwater.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/threw_the_baby_out_with_the_bathwater. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.